Fight For Life Part One: Bad Blood
by Rock Scorpion
Summary: When Giles mysteriously goes missing Buffy and Anya cast a spell to locate him and are drawn into an epic journey all the way to Hell and back. Set during season 5.
1. Chapter 1

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One

Prologue: The Guatemalan Rainforest.

03:00 hours

The drop zone was three feverish klicks North of their current position and each step took them further from safety and deeper into Hell.

Their commander was experienced in negotiating this type of terrain, but the squad was relatively green and new to both the jungle and the style of leadership. A halt was called, a clenched fist raised straight into the air. Silhouetted against the silver night sky it resembled the visuals of their destination. They stopped, weapons cradled in powerful arms as they did their best to blend in with the vegetation. A brief conference occurred at the point of the squad. The order to go infa-red and advance at ground level was communicated by hand signals. As one, they dropped onto their bellies and clicked the visors on their helmets in place. A series of buzzing sounds signified the squad maxing out the wavelength. The jungle frame shifted around them, it was momentarily disorientating but they were well trained and maintained the advance through the tropical mulch and insects.

The rainforest was changing character; they felt cool air start to move across any exposed skin. The commander, coated in plasti-steel body armor was launched into a tree and quickly scrambled up its vine-choked trunk for a better view. Communications broke the silence they had been working under since they had left the bird and their earpieces crackled into life. The squad was concatenated in an instant, able to inform and respond with all others in the unit.

The commander's voice came through; quickly and in precise detail the changing environment was described. They had worked their way to their objective. Twenty meters away was the edge of a steep rocky incline where the jungle dropped away. Ropes would be required for the descent.

At their current elevation they were level with the tops of the trees of this lower land. Approximately one hundred and fifty meters to the East a Mayan pyramid towered above the foliage. The area surrounding it had been cleared and there was considerable humanoid activity with large fires burning within the tower's perimeter. The commander using a pair of digi-nocs described the distribution and size of the threat. They were demons, pygmy demons. The atmosphere in the squad lightened. It had been a tough slog and they still had a dirty job to do but at least now it felt less threatening.

They moved out. Four ropes were quickly attached to the sheer rock face with explosive bolts. Three men dug in at the top of the cliff with napalm launchers. If the assault on the tower went badly, and the squad was forced to abandon the mission then this back line could drop nightmarish amounts of covering fire a dozen paces behind the retreating unit. The assault however, would not go badly. The commander was Initiative through and through and had never failed to bring a result home even if the squads that had returned had been less than complete.

The remaining eleven grunts, including the commander, slipped down the ropes and slithered into the darkness below. Contact was maintained throughout the unit via the multi-way radio headsets. Each soldier could hear the breathing of each and every other man. Like a hunting pack in their prime with first blood in their mouths and victory in the air they loped through the jungle. Ten meters from the start of the clearing that surrounded the tower they stopped for one last weapon check.

Every man waited for that one word that would open up the night; the commander whispering attack. The demons were oblivious to their presence, absorbed in their rituals and the sacrifices they required. They were gutting huge numbers of fish and frogs and tossing their innards on the bonfires while dancing in berserk circles. Large chalices of fireflies that had either been de-winged or sedated were being passed around and the waist high demons were pouring the luminescent creatures liberally over their bodies or into their mouths. Cross hairs fixed on craniums as soldiers picked their first targets. This was going to be easy. A gun on hips massacre.

Suddenly the demon pygmies stopped. Everything went quiet. As one they turned and stared out into the jungle. Somehow each set of fiery eyes managed to lock directly with the hidden men. The Initiative all froze waiting for that one word in their earpieces that would release them to action. It was a word that never came.

The first sound was of screams. But it was from no one in the immediate group. A series of explosions deep in the forest behind them identified the point of attack. Their back line was being taken out. Bright trails scorched the sky as grenades were fired wildly into the air. What in the name of God could they be shooting at? Was the attack airborne? The answer came soon enough. It tore its way through the massive Durian and Saurian trees. Sweeping them aside with black claws the size of buildings. It roared and the sound was deafening without the microphones of the multi-way radio channeling it directly from the source. Flames like a petrol refinery exploding gushed from the gargantuan demon's face and scoured the cliff top of all life. The screams in the earpieces had initially been of fear of the unknown. Then they had been from fear of the known and so terrible that when they were snuffed out it was a relief to the rest of the ground troops.

The commander's voice could now be heard. It was a trap...circle formation...remember your training...multi-melters to the front, plasma cannons to the center...Do it...do it now if you want to live.

The monstrous demon thrashed an unknowable number of arms and leapt into the jungle canopy below. The impact of it's landing rocked the unit throwing them into disarray as they tried to organize themselves into a defensive formation. Flames licked about it like sweat, igniting the treetops. The commander was calling out individual names now, allocating offensive power to the demons behind while focusing the majority at the approaching Lucifuge. It was charging through the jungle as if the trees were nothing more than tall grass. Bladders emptied at the sheer power on display. Its ferocity verged on the biblical.

The second in command was screaming dissent. We must retreat. For the love of God order a retreat. We're all going to die. New cries were heard. The demon pygmies extended their arms and from the stones below them energy crackled up their limbs and into the air. Their bodies began to change. Began to warp and multiply and blacken. Under tremendous forces they whipped and contorted, expanding until they dwarfed the tower, which was oozing with a honey like light. It was the last straw. The Initiative was surrounded. Blind panic ensued. Some prayed others tried to run. Frightened out of their minds the shock troops collided with members of their own squad. Realizing the inevitability of their situation most knelt and wept for their souls. Only the commander held the ground. As the demons trampled and incinerated the scattering Initiative, reaching into the undergrowth and lifting individuals into the air to rip them apart the commander followed orders.

The demon that had launched the attack swept away the final tree and stood before the commander of the unit. It roared and tilting its head to the blood moon erupted like a volcano sending flame a mile into the sky. The commander removed her helmet and shook a mane of long blonde hair around her shoulders. She hoisted a plasma cannon to her shoulder and began to work the trigger. She was able to release half a dozen charges at the Hell-beast before it reduced her to ash. The Initiative's attack on Target 14G-3kEast was over. It had not gone according to plan and someone was going to be very unhappy indeed.

Sunnydale

**One.**

" Oh. I am so happy. " Anya fondled a wodge of green dollar bills and jumped up and down. She vigorously rubbed her hands together as if trying to warm them and sprinkled el dinero over the shop counter. Giles arched an eyebrow.

" Oh happy, happy, happy ", danced the ex-demon, " happy and reeech." She held some under her nose and inhaled deeply, a wide smile illuminated her pretty features. Giles shook his head and resisted smiling at his assistant's exuberant behavior. He had long ago ceased to be shocked by how seriously she took her role as a capitalist. Now, Giles tried to enjoy her enthusiasm for what it was, genuine pleasure and happiness. As far as Giles could ascertain, Anya was unable to experience any form of the blues that the ping of the cash register could not alleviate.

Secretly, he actually found her glee and unapologetic nature quite infectious. He worried slightly if the closing of the doors at the end of each days trading was not preceded by any of Anya's singing. The Giles of twenty years ago would have been so disappointed at how Ripper had turned out.

" All set? " Giles placed his briefcase on the shop counter, removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It had been a long day and he was tired. All he wanted was to go home, have a relaxing shower and glide between the sheets of his bed with some Trollop. Giles chuckled internally at his own joke.

Anya finished smoothing out the folded corners of the days takings and organized the bills into their different denominations. Then she locked the money in the small floor safe and after checking that the dingbats were definitely secure more times than was necessary gathered up her personal belongings. She flashed Giles with a variety of her best smiles during this whole process. Just to keep the grumpy male happy while he waited.

" Ready, " she said just as the bell above the door tinkled. The door opened. Giles slid his glasses back up his nose and stepped forwards. " Olivia, " he said. Anya cocked her head to one side, why had Giles voice suddenly gone all syrupy.

" Olivia, " said Giles unable to disguise the surprise in his voice.

" Rupert. So good to see you again. " Anya liked the way she purred the English mans name. She made a mental note to address Xander in that way. She was sure he would appreciate it, especially if she said it while wearing that sheer black teddy that gave her no support whatsoever. Didn't he understand what would happen if she wore that all the time?

The woman called Olivia had undulated into the Magic Box and after giving its wares a cursory glance had stopped at a shelf to inspect something more closely. She stood side on to them in a fashion that could only be described as being sly.

" Five minutes overtime already Giles. "

" Mmm. What? Oh yes, please go Anya. " His eyes never left the dark woman. Thank you he called as the door swung closed on her.

Xandur. Xanduur. Xanduurrr. If she said it really slowly she could make her chest rumble. She liked that.

Back in the Magic Box Giles was still deciding which vowel to trip over first.

" Oh, um, I, I, I… "

" So Giles, " said Olivia holding up an Iban fertility statue with a large appendage angling upwards, "exactly what type of joint are you running here? "

" Uh, uh, well… " Don't remove your glasses man, he told himself. For Goodness sake don't.

" Looks kind of like a bong. " She raised it to her luscious lips as if to take a hit. Giles realized that he was holding his glasses and giggling manically like a schoolgirl. Olivia covered the final distance between them in heels designed for the job. She stood close, clothes almost touching and looked up with those magnificent eyes of hers. They were as rich as Belgian chocolate and as dark as magic eight balls. Every fiber of Giles body wanted to shake her and see what the future had in store for them. He wanted to put his arms around her, pull her close and introduce her to the wonders of the pommel horse in Buffy's training room.

He fought his way back to English restraint. Then, just as her lips parted to deliver some new innuendo he leaned forwards and kissed her hard. He knew this woman very well. She was Olivia Jackenzie, lead cellist with the London Symphony Orchestra. She and Giles had had a relationship since before he had rejoined the Watchers Council. They had never been lovers, in that they had ever been in love. They had always in their hearts been slaves to their separate vocations. However, from time to time, when their choppy lives crossed they took the opportunity to spend quiet time in the arms of another who reminded them of when life had been simpler. A time, now in the past, when he hadn't been Rupert Giles, Watcher to the Slayer and she wasn't Olivia Jackenzie, Previn's ingénue. When they were alone they returned to the selves they had had to leave behind. Ripper and Jazz; scourges of the demonic underworld of Albion.

She melted in his arms, grabbing handfuls of tweed as the passion rose. He almost allowed himself to fall in. But broke the kiss before she was ready. Ripper was in control. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

" What say we get drunk and do something bad. " He said.

" Oh, " she cooed, " Now that's the Giles I remember. "

Giles picked up his briefcase and then reconsidering, tossed it aside. He wasn't going to need that tonight. He plucked the BMWs keys from his pocket and twirled them on one finger as he opened the door for her.

" Would you like to go for a ride in my shiny new sports car? "

" Only if you will push her to the limit and see how fast she goes? "

Giles checked the interior of the Magic Box one last time and then locked the door. " Why ever not, " he said to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Two**

"Please Miss Summers. Hold still."

"Wuuuurraggghhhh"

"Please Miss Summers, I nearly have it. Jesus. Nurse, suction."

"Wuuugghh."

The nurse pinned Buffy's head back on the operating chair and crammed more tubes in her mouth. "Godammit!" swore the dentist. He strained to reach another pair of extraction pliers, a bigger pair, and clamped them to the end of the set he had already fixed around the recalcitrant molar. With this added leverage he set to work on the tooth again.

"Woookh."

"I'm sorry about this Miss Summers, please stop fighting." He wasn't sorry at all. Now, Doctor Daedalus was pissed. Never had he encountered such a problematic patient. Her tooth was riddled with infection. It was more cavity than masticator and yet he couldn't even get it to budge. The blasted thing wouldn't even break. If it would just crack above the gum then he could drill it out piece by piece.

"Wuh, wuh, wuh." sobbed Buffy.

The door to the waiting room opened and a redhead, obviously alarmed by the ruckus stuck her head in, "Buffy?"

"Uh Gug Wugwow. Hugp mag."

"Now nurse Gonzales." Cried the dentist. He had one more trick up his sleeve.

Surprise.

He slammed one knee in Buffy's chest and launching himself into the air came down on the pliers sticking out of her mouth with two tendon bulging arms.

Something twanged and Doctor Daedalus found himself lying on the floor with a very cute and drooling blonde on top of him. Any other time, he thought.

He looked at the piece of metal in his hand. One of the pliers had broken. Impossible. They were a composite of stainless steel and tungsten. There was no way they would have broken before a diseased tooth. Miss Summers and the redhead were removing all the surgical garbage from her mouth and the look in her eyes said that complaints regarding broken equipment would not be tolerated today. Miss Summers swiped some Vicadin from his cupboard and left with one hand on her swollen jaw. The redhead gave him a look that said, you are a very bad dentist and followed her friend out of his surgery.

Nurse Gonzales was in shock. Her face was flushed and sweaty and during the hectic struggle buttons had popped off her smock to reveal some caramel cleavage and just a hint of red lace. The suction pump was still running in her hand.

Any other time thought Doctor Daedalus.


	3. Chapter 3

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Three**

"Oh Giles. She's beautiful." Olivia ran her hand over the machines hard shell, which had turned from red to burgundy in the decaying light.

"I call her Jazz," said Ripper, "because you never know where she is going to take you next."

He pressed the beeper and the cars lights flashed and its locks released. If he hadn't been so distracted by the beauty before him he might have noticed that the lock to the trunk had been broken. But he didn't, he was in full on, hot-blooded Ripper mode.

"And," he said sliding one arm around her waist, "she's hot." It was corny but Ripper didn't care. And judging by where Olivia put her hand neither did she. Somewhere deep inside Rupert removed his glasses, sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Ripper opened the passenger side door and Olivia eased herself in. The seats were low and her skirt tightened then rode high up her thighs as she sat down. Her skin looked so good against the creamy white interior.

He closed the door and then did something he hadn't done in a long time. On automatic pilot his body feel back into old patterns and patted down his pockets looking for a packet of cigarettes. None there. He shrugged, they were going to the off-license, and he would get some fags there.

He completely missed the change in Olivia's expression. Her languid poise suddenly tensed and reflected in the inviting waters of those tropical eyes dark shapes moved. He had been careless. He had forgotten where he was and what happened when the sun set. Damn Ripper, screamed Rupert. Damn him to Hell.

Something warm and gelatinous emerged from the shadows along the walls of the alley. It struck him across the back and wrapped itself around his extended right arm. Immediately it began to set like cement. The impact of its mass suddenly hitting him sent him careering along the side of the bodywork and onto the trunk. He tried to move, to twist away, and to get to the weapons in his briefcase. He was stuck.

Another clot of the demonic phlegm exploded from the shadows and struck him square in the face. He saw it coming but could do nothing. Instantly his ability to breathe was gone. He could still hear though. Olivia was screaming in the car. Screaming for his help. A sudden light appeared in the sky as if a monstrous portal had opened. A terrible wind came from within it sending litter spiraling in to the air and throwing dumpsters against walls. He tried to fight against the fluid but it had hardened and he was set in stone. Stuck to his shiny red car like a bug in gum.

What had attacked them? His encyclopedic mind leafed through entries that matched this _modus operandi_. Memnoch demons? Or Lusurgi clan or good grief perhaps even Wallachian Hell beasts. Oh Olivia, I'm so sorry and with that Giles asphyxiated brain went unconscious.

Moments later the alley was silent. Purged of all living creatures. The litter slowly drifted down and all activity ceased. The only sign that anything untoward had happened there was the thick strands of hardened gloop that encrusted the rear of the vehicle.

Tentatively a sound was heard. Gentle, cautious at first it rose in volume to a maniacal beating of flesh against metal. Someone was in the trunk of the car and trying to get out but was trapped by the unnatural glue that had netted Giles.

The beating died off and then ceased completely as whoever was in the trunk resigned themselves to their incarceration. The alley grew quiet again except for a muffled voice that said,

"Oh bloody marvelous."


	4. Chapter 4

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Four**

"Feeling any better Buffy?"

"Oo gust marbeguss gankfew." Said Buffy. She realized she had delivered it too sharply when she felt her friend wince. Buffy reached out and touched Willow's arm.

"Sourgee." she said. Buffy wanted to add that it `hurg agot' but that would have been just stating the obvious. Her slayer strength had so many advantages but at other times it was a real drag. Especially when it meant normal dentists couldn't pull superteeth.

They were walking through Sunnydale to Xander and Anya's flat. Just as they were crossing the road to the apartment complex a truck pulled up and Xander with hardhat and lunchbox climbed out. He waved to his lift as the truck pulled off then spotted Buffy and Willow. His face cracked into a smile.

Use the pain. Move through it and let it make you sharper, Riley would have advised. Don't give in to it. Thinking of him Buffy momentarily forgot the dental pain. Her heart shed a little tear of pure regret. Where was he now she wondered? She felt so badly about how that had all ended. If she had the time to live again would she have run after him any faster? If it had been Angel would she have made the jump to the helicopters struts? Perhaps shouted louder, made him hear her. Had she given up on Riley? Had she in her heart wanted him to go?

Xander's beaming face was suddenly in hers and his arm around her shoulders.

"How's my little slayer?" he was saying, "Want me to beat up that bad dentist?" Buffy pushed him away.

"Zandagh, Yugh smugh."

"A good smell or a bad smell? Is it the manly aroma of a day of testosterone soaked man work, or is it more like the sewer line we cracked?"

Buffy shrugged, "Asgh Angyah."

"Ah Anya. Sweet spawn of Satan, love of my life." They went up to the building with Xander taking the steps two at a time, dancing like Gene Kelly as he called Anya a litany of names that could only apply to a Sunnydale gal. Willow laughed at his antics, helping him out with more names, some nasty just for the sake of it. Buffy held back. Thinking of Riley had brought her down. It made her think about herself.

As Xander held the security door open for her what sounded like a Black Ops. Chopper shot across the sky above them. Buffy's head whipped back to see what it had been but as she did her tooth woke up and began playing its rusty violin again. She moaned and Xander put his arm around her again and led her up the stairs to his flat with promises of bourbon and distracting sex.

He was an asshole, thought Buffy but she loved him. At least it was one relationship she hadn't managed to royally ruin.


	5. Chapter 5

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Five**

Giles reclined and enjoyed the sensation of the suntan oil bake his chest. It felt wonderful, even more so because of the woman he was spending this downtime with.

The Pacific broke hard against the Californian beach shaking the sand and sucking at the shingle before another breaker crashed in. This was the life. Blackpool be damned, he was an ex-pat and proud of it. He reached out for his daiquiri but the glass was empty. No matter. He settled back on his towel and allowed the sun to continue irradiating him.

His mind drifted, pulsing in time with the tide. Back and forth, to and fro, round and around. Counting out the day on a clock of natures design. He started suddenly. Had he fallen asleep? Eyes shielded behind black Ray-Bans he groped to his side trying to locate Olivia. Perhaps she needed some more oil applied. He certainly hoped so. Never before had he had a whole beach to enjoy with a woman in such fine weather.

For some reason Olivia felt cold to his touch. He was aware of a sudden smell, sharp and unpleasant. Some sewage blowing inland from the beach he thought. It was certainly windy enough.

He rolled over and removed his shades. The sun was so strong that he was nearly blind. All he could make out of his companion was a dark outline. With arms shaky from the sun he propped himself up and removed some stray curls that had become soaked in sweat and stuck to her forehead.

He said her name. There was that smell again. What was that confounded stench? It was beginning to ruin his day. Perhaps they would have to move further along the beach.

He repeated her name. Olivia moved. Her arm came up and slowly she removed her own shades. Giles recoiled. The sea began to beat harder and harder. It seemed to crash on the sand inches from their feet and yet there was no spray.

Olivia's eyes were gone. Where they had been were two dark chasms filled with gore, which ran down her face like yolk. She opened her maw and the smell came back tenfold. Putrescent and ulcerous and acrid like sick piss. She was speaking, talking in that throaty growl she had but the body was dead and decaying and the voice was a phantom of the living woman's sexual appeal.

Giles recoiled, tried to scramble away but her arms snapped out and with great strength she pulled him towards her. He could not resist. As she drew him closer the smell grew in intensity making him retch. In his ears he could hear her cooing pillow talk, but her body was beyond the acts she proposed. She was opened from neck to crotch. All the soft organs were missing removed by the crabs and gulls while he had slept. In the cavity that remained sand flies hopped and laid eggs. Her dark skin hung in tattered flaps over her ribs and thighs.

Her grip on his head increased. She pulled him closer then lower and arched her hips. The stench was beyond belief. Giles was now screamed uncontrollably as Olivia's corpse pulled him deep within her abdomen and there something began to coil about his face.


	6. Chapter 6

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Six**

"Honey. I'm home."

Work-Xander set his lunchbox on the kitchenette counter and casually threw his hard hat on the sofa.

"Anya baby, your man is home and there is no food on the table." He smiled at Buffy and Willow to let them know that this was part of the routine; as if they didn't already. The bedroom door was slightly ajar and from within came the sound of Anya's voice.

"Xanduur. Xanduurrr."

Xander was taking off his lumberjack shirt and flung it in the hamper in the bathroom. Willow sat herself at the counter while Buffy popped two Vicadin in her mouth and began looking through he cupboards for some of Xander's promised alcohol to wash them down. She found a bottle of Wild Turkey and unscrewed the cap.

"Anya honey, are you okay. You sound like you've got the cold."

"Xanduur. I seem to have manacled myself to the bed. Why don't you get your big butch tool belt out and see what you can do."

Xander's face resembled that of a frog caught in the lights of an oncoming lawn mower.

"Uh Anya honey."

"Xanduurrr. I can make my chest vibrate. Come and feel."

"Anya we have company."

"Its not that twin of yours back is it?"

Xander wrung his hands.

"No its Buffy and Willow."

There was a moment of almost complete silence the loudest thing being the hum of their combined blushes. Anya came out of the bedroom with a gown pulled tight around her. She took the whiskey from Buffy's hands and put it to her head. For an instant, pain forgotten Buffy felt for Xander.

"So what do you want?" blurted Anya.

Buffy dry swallowed the painkillers.

"Buffy is here because we're all supposed to be meeting Giles at the Magic Box for a Scooby conference," explained Xander. Anya took another gulp.

"And you. Lesbian. What's your problem?"

Willow was more shocked than she ever had been before in her life. Her face looked like it had been pressed against a sheet of glass as she swiveled on the seat from Buffy to Xander. Xander crossed the room in an instant and escorted his fiancé to the bedroom.

"Look perhaps we can meet you at the Magic Box." He nodded his head a few times behind Anya's back to indicate that they take the hint. Anya grabbed him by the vest and threw him roughly into their sanctuary.

"Yes. Meet us at the shop." It wasn't even a disguised request. It was a command from a woman who had in a previous life been a vengeance demon and in this life had been anxiously anticipating the return of her man.

Buffy and Willow put their heads down and left the flat immediately. Buffy hadn't completely lost her wits though. The bottle of Turkey was in her back pocket.


	7. Chapter 7

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Seven**

Giles was suddenly very conscious. He was kneeling on something hard and cold. His hands were restrained behind his back and there was a blindfold over his eyes.

He tried to take in his surroundings with his remaining senses. Noise came first. There was a terrible amount of noise where he was. A noise that shook everything including himself. Was he in some Hell dimension? It did not feel right. The smell from his nightmare was here though. Now however it was more like ammonia and he recognized it immediately; smelling salts. How could he ever have mistaken that smell?

"Good. Thought we'd lost you there for a second." Did he recognize that voice? It sounded human and familiar but he couldn't put a face to it. For how long had he been unconscious? What exactly had happened? They had been going to see the car in the alley behind the shop and then what. They had been attacked. There had been a powerful wind and a brilliant light. His mind failed him. Oh my God!

"Olivia." He shouted suddenly remembering her screams. Something or someone struck him hard across the face.

"Lets keep it down Mr. Watcher. No need to embarrass ourselves any more than necessary." It was that same voice talking to him. Giles realized that there were more people in here with him. Others who weren't talking.

"I swear to all you hold holy," started Giles, "If you hurt one hair …" Another strike across the face. He was grabbed by the throat and his head was pushed back against the wall behind him. The voice was on the other side of the blindfold, spraying saliva on his skin. It had lost the small amount of pleasantness it possessed.

"Listen very carefully English. Your bitch is alive. How much longer is directly dependent upon you. I'm going to ask you a question. The answer had better be the right word." To his right Giles thought he heard a sniff. A woman's sniff.

"Olivia are you here?"  
The hand on his jaw became a boot and he slumped sideways his head swimming in lights. The smelling salts brought him round. He lay on his left arm and tried to gather his wits. He tested whatever was around his wrists.

"Maglocks. Can't be released until we reach our DZ," said the voice. Suddenly it all made sense.

"DZ? Maglocks? You Initiative cretins. I've made custards with better espionage skills than you lot. Who's in charge?" There was no answer. Giles was really hot now. All fear was gone and was replaced with deep anger.

There was movement to his right. The voice spoke again.

"Whose side are you on English?"

"What? Have you completely lost your sanity? I will say nothing until I know where Miss Jackenzie is."

"Hatch," said a new voice. There was the sound of a door on rails being slid to one side and the cabin was filled with an icy wind that blew Giles hair about his face. Well that answered one question. They were in a helicopter. With the hatch open they were exposed to the full roar of the rotors. Yet under all this cacophony Giles could hear duct tape being ripped from skin and the unmistakable sound of a pistol being chambered. Olivia screamed. There was terror in her voice. How high were they? What were they doing to her?

"Giles. What's going on? What have you done to me?"

"Hold on Olivia. It's all going to be okay." Giles tried to get to her, to find her with no arms and no eyes in a room full of soldiers. He was deftly knocked down.

"No everything is not going to be okay," shouted the voice, "Tell me now. Whose side are you on?"

"Don't you dare hurt her. Don't you dare."

"Side asshole. Are you with us?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Giiiles."

"Olivia you bastards I'll hex every last one of you I'll send you to Hell you'll die a thousand deaths I'll…."

BLAM!

Something wet hit Giles in the face. Was it rain from outside? Giles crumpled in a corner. The chopper hatch was closed. There was a smell of cordite in the air. The chopper droned on to their DZ. Whup, whup, whup. Giles started to shake. Someone threw a blanket over him.

"You better be on our side or that was just the start of the dying." said the voice into his ear.


	8. Chapter 8

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Eight**

"Ah," said Anya as she strode into the Magic Box, "Now everything is alright. Anyone want tea? The English man likes tea. I'd like tea. Warm sweet tea." She went into the small cupboard that served as their kitchen to put on the kettle almost illuminating the cruddy little room with her glow.

"Everything back to normal then?" asked Willow.

"Yeah." Said Xander sitting down and rubbing his jaw muscles. Buffy pulled a face and rubbed her own jaw line.

"Jeez," commented Willow with innocence behind her years, "these toothaches are really catching."

Anya came back out with a tray of steaming cups of tea and some stale donuts. She was dressed in easy jeans, old sneakers and a vile colored fleece top. Her hair at the front was tousled and standing up.

"So," she started, "how is everyone?" Willow was the only one in the group who felt like responding verbally though Anya's recent barbs were still sore points for her.

"Where is Giles?" she said, perkily as she could manage. Buffy and Xander shrugged. Anya looked right, then left and then shrugged.

"Probably with that English woman."

"Whut Unglesh wumun?" Either the painkillers or the Wild Turkey or a combination of the two had begun to kick in because Buffy felt her mouth was slowly returning to its normal state.

"Oh just some woman who came in at closing time and got Giles hormones racing." Anya waved away the information as she tucked into a donut.

"Mmm. Sugar. Here Xander you have some sugar." Xander refused the proffered treat. He'd rather not have the energy, just in case Anya's good mood lasted.

"Whut Englush womun?" persisted Buffy, "Oh mu God Zandah. Huve u nut hud uh showher?"

Xander clamped his arms by his sides.

And crossed his legs.

"Just that English lady who hung round his house a year ago wearing his shirts. The well dressed one."

"Olivia," volunteered Willow. Anya nodded around her donut and rolled her eyes as if to say 'trust you to remember a good looking woman's name'. It wasn't lost on Willow who scowled.

"Well I'm going to phone him. See if he's coming tonight." Even Buffy couldn't completely smother a smile. Willow dialed a number then waited as Giles phone rang. She hung up.

"No answer," she said.

"Maybe Giles has taken a night off being Watcher man," suggested Xander.

"Maybe not." Willow walked across the shop and picked something up from the wall behind the front door. She held up Giles briefcase.

"He wouldn't go anywhere without his briefcase." she said.

"Rooght. Gat gettles id." Buffy sat back down, "Oooh Gawg Zangah. Hulph mug."

It was Xander's turn to stand up.

"Right here's the plan. Willow you come with me. We're going to his house to find out what the dirty dog is up to."

"Righteo." Willow set the briefcase on the table and pulled on her shawl.

"Anya. You stay here. We'll phone and let you know what's happening. You never know, Giles might turn up by himself. We'll be back as soon as possible. Buffy you do what you do best. Go out and crack some heads and see what you can turn up."

Xander took a long hard look at the Slayer.

"On second thought you just sit there and drink that Turkey I know you stole from me."

"Ohkah. Sourgee."

"Ooo Xander. You've gone all military and its doing things for me."

"No time for that now love. We've got an upper class twit to find, no idea where to start and the wrestling is on in less than an hour. Will, lets hit the streets."

Xander swept dramatically out of the shop with Willow running to catch up. It was one of his finest moments and he knew it. He just hoped that the door didn't hit him on the ass on his way out.

Buffy and the donut muncher sat in silence for approximately ten seconds.

"U'm gung patrullung." Buffy took another swig of the Whiskey and stood up. She swayed into the training room and took a crossbow of the wall and a small axe out of the weapons locker. She went back into the magic box and put on her coat. She checked that Mr. Pointy was in his usual pocket and tied the belt. She popped two more Vicadin in her mouth and washed them down with the whiskey.

"You know," said Anya licking frosting off her fingers, "If you really want to find Giles then you're going about this the wrong way."

"Oh rheaggy." Buffy's mouth was killing her and her patience was wearing dangerously thin. "Und whug wud goo sugget?" Anya opened her arms and indicated the wares of the Magic Box.

"Give me two minutes," she said extracting her pinky from her mouth with a pop.


	9. Chapter 9

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Nine**

Giles. Ripper! No, Rupert. The chopper landing. Bundled. Being moved. Still blindfolded. Heat. Hot, dry dusty oppressive heat. Voices. Sounds. Chopper quietening down. Truck. Bouncing. Stopping. Doors opening. Artificial light. Pain. All over. Tired. Numb. Not numb enough. Olivia. Damn Ripper. Injection. Arm. Rushing. Speed. Coming back. NO! He didn't want to.

Ahhh, thought Giles. Where am I?

He remained motionless, he had learnt. Keep it quiet.

He was somewhere new, no longer on the chopper. Where was he being taken? He assumed he was still a prisoner of the Initiative. What had happened to them? This was not the same outfit he had gotten to know through Riley. These people were brutal. They had murdered Olivia because he had resisted them. They hadn't even threatened. An order had been given and now she was dead. He was to blame. It was his fault. Her blood was on his conscience.

He was being moved again. He was lying on his back. Probably on a gurney from the way the light came through his blindfold. Strongly and then weakly and then strongly again. It was as if he was being wheeled along a corridor. There was commotion all around him but it wasn't centered on him. He was passing through it. Anonymous.

Eventually he was taken away from the busy corridors. He came to a stop and heard people walking away; his porters most likely. He tried to move convinced he was momentarily alone. No luck. He could feel restraining straps crossing his body. More footsteps. The sound of plastic hospital doors swinging open then slapping shut. He heard voices. One voice he recognized immediately, he would never forget that voice. It was the sound of the man that had killed Olivia. He would get them. He would get them all. They would pay. They had no idea who they were dealing with.

The doors slapped together again. Either someone had come in or a decision had been reached and someone had left. Giles strained to decide which was the case.

There was a new voice. Someone had come in. Oh my God. He recognized this man.

"Riley Finn! You cowardly bastard. How could you do this?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Giles. Couldn't be helped."

Giles strained in the gurney and desperately tried to break the restraints. A stream of expletives spurted from his mouth.

"Please Mr. Giles." Riley was trying to placate him. He placed a hand on Giles chest but that just made him worse. He bared his teeth and tried to plunge them into Finn.

"Mr. Giles. Please calm down. I'm sorry for the circumstances. But believe me, when I tell you why you have been brought here you will help us."

"Like Hell. She was an innocent."

"Compared to what is coming we are all innocents." Riley reached behind Giles head and removed the blindfold. Giles fixed on the younger mans face. Riley had gone through some changes since the Watcher had last seen him. The blonde hair was still there but now was in a severe military cut. His face, or what remained of it was recognizably that of the soldier that Giles had once known and considered a friend, though now it was scarred and battle hardened. The right side was gone. Hidden behind metal and wiring. Where his right eye had been was now a pulsing red light.

"I hope that hurt."

"It sure did Mr. Giles. Still does as a matter of fact. I just hope you won't end up going through the same thing…. "

Riley left the rest open. He turned to the two guards.

"I brief him in twenty. Keep him quiet until then." With that Commander Finn left the room.


	10. Chapter 10

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Ten**

Right that should do it." Anya surveyed the magic paraphernalia she had gathered on the tabletop.

"Do what?" asked Buffy. She took another deep hit from the bottle. Her Watcher was missing, last seen with an English woman who stank of the Watchers council. Even the thought of those guys made her blood boil. She wanted to be out cracking heads and finding out what was going on instead of sitting in the Magic Box listening to Anya.

"This should find Rupert Giles," perked Anya as she opened an original copy of the Malleus Malleficarum.

"How?" asked Buffy. Buffy didn't understand why if there was magic to be done Willow wasn't the one performing it.

"Its simple. You're trying to find a man. A refined and honorable man but a man none the less. Now all your Wicca, it's very good for channeling and contacting the more ethereal aspects of our universe, but if there's one-thing men are not, its ethereal. Wicca is just too female-centric for this job if you know what I mean."

Buffy found herself agreeing. She loved Willow to death but there was an awful lot of flowery print and a penchant for tabby cats underlying most of the magic she was involved in. Perhaps Anya with her bed-head and up-front desires was more in touch with men and the way they thought.

"Men aren't as versatile as women. The moon sign corresponds to Ying, or the female aspect of life. It's easy to see why. Constantly changing, a hidden dark side, monthly cycles yah-di-yah and all that."

"The male counterpart is the sun. Dependable, reliable, honest. You do realize that I'm talking about the ideal man. Not most men. Anyway what does the sun do? It rises and it sets. Up and down, up and down. If you get my drift."

Buffy took another slug of the Wild Turkey and shrugged.

"Does in and out help?"

"I got it Anya."

"So anyway, men are simple. They all have one thing in common."

"Okay."

"One thing they all love. More than life itself." Anya began to mix ingredients. Orange essential oil, musk, gunpowder and a piece from a Yak that made Buffy wince for Mrs. Yak.

"So if you know what they love, which we do, then we can know what they really love with that bit of their anatomy. That one thing apart from that first thing that makes them feel like a man."

Buffy thought that she followed Anya's train of thought. It was very different from Willows who would probably have summoned a guide to talk to or be advised by or even just follow.

Anya mixed the ingredients into a small cauldron and held up the Malleus Malleficarum. "This is the most male centered book ever written, well since the Bible anyway. It was used by the Spanish Inquisition to persecute witches or basically any woman that wouldn't kneel down and kiss their ring."

"Can do without the detail Anya."

"Do you have something personal of Giles?"

Buffy thought for a second and then opened his briefcase and removed his Watchers guidebook. It was one of his most prized possessions. Buffy hoped this spell wouldn't damage it.

"Perfect." said Anya. She placed the book in the cauldron and poured the blood of a lion killed by an unarmed Masai warrior over it. Immediately the tables built in magic circle ignited and the air filled with eldritch energy.

Anya began to chant from the book and the Spanish Inquisitions twisted and malevolent yang began to work its mojo.

"So in the pot is going to appear something that Giles loves because it completes him as a man which in turn is going to lead us to him because his love for it makes it special?" said Buffy.

"Exactly." said Anya, "Glad to hear your tooth is getting better."

"Wow it really is that simple."

"Of course. It's a man spell."

The light suddenly built to a crescendo and with a brilliant flash blew all the candles out.

"Right," said Anya, "turn on the lights and lets see what we've got."

Buffy hit the switch and Anya reached into the cauldron.

"Oh," she said, "I'm almost disappointed."


	11. Chapter 11

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Eleven**

The briefing had ended half an hour ago. Giles was leaning against a wall beside a water fountain in one of the initiatives many corridors. Riley walked up to him.

"Now you understand?"

"Yes," sighed Giles, "Now I understand."

"And you'll help us?"

Giles ran some water into his hand and wiped the cold liquid over his face. His hand turned red.

"Yes I'll help you. I'll do whatever I can. How can I not?"

"Good. I'll have someone come for you in a few minutes."

"Superb." Giles stood up straight, stretched his shoulders and put on his glasses. "You do realize that when this is over I'm going to kill you Finn."

"Perfectly understandable Mr. Giles."

Riley slapped him on the shoulder with a metal gauntlet that had once been a hand of flesh and blood. "Wouldn't have it any other way." Commander Finn marched away attracting many salutes.

Giles watched him with a terrible weariness in his heart. He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Where to begin?


	12. Chapter 12

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part One: Sunnydale

**Twelve**

"Car keys?" exclaimed Buffy. "That stupid car makes him feel like a man?"

"Well look at it this way it's going to make getting to him a lot easier." Buffy had to agree Anya had a point.

"So where do you think he left it?"

"Usually parked in the alley at the rear of the shop." Buffy hoisted her weapons and handed Anya the briefcase.

"Okay. Lets go."

"Yay. I love driving his car."

They both went through the back door and there was Giles car. Exactly where he had parked it that morning.

"Its not locked." said Anya.

"Is that part of the spell?" asked Buffy. Anya put her hands up and threw the briefcase on the backseat. She jumped into the drivers seat. Buffy opened the passenger door and peered in.

"Now maybe we should think this through Anya. Perhaps wait for Will and Xander to get back."

"Okay" said Anya and put the key in the ignition. The car went off like a primed bomb. Its wheels burned and the rear end of the car whipped around scooping Buffy into Anya's lap.

"ANYAAAAH."

"It's not me. It's not me. Look no hands. No feet. Its not me." Still burning rubber and screeching like God's nails on a blackboard the sports car powered down the alley.

"Wall." screamed Buffy.

"Wall." screamed Anya.

The handbrake released at the last moment and the shiny red BMW was spat out onto the main Sunnydale through road in a long, black, smoking arc. It wobbled for a sickening moment, straightened out and immediately began to accelerate. The pedal hammered down and the needle buried itself in the dashboard above a hundred.

"Brakes Anya, try the brakes."

"Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap."

There was a sound inside the car of sheet steel bending and material being ripped and a white head punched its way out of the trunk through a hole in the rear seat.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't my favorite slayer and ex-vengeance demon. You bints going on a road trip?"

"Spike." They screamed in unison as the Sunnydale city limits sign rocketed past and the car plunged into the Californian night.


	13. Chapter 13

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two

"I don't believe in science. All those little bits and molecules that no-ones ever seen."

-Drucilla.

Prologue: The Briefing.

22:20 hours

Giles was escorted through a pair of reinforced metal doors into a large room with a high ceiling. His guard sat him in a seat at a circular table, removed his maglocks and left. The doorway sealed behind him with a pneumatic hiss. There were three people already in the briefing room waiting for him. Finn was perched on the edge of a metal bench, beside him stood a smaller man with a shocking mass of red hair. This smaller man was wearing a white lab coat, the worldwide uniform of scientists and doctors.

The third person was sitting opposite Giles at the round table, about fifteen feet away. He was mostly in shadow but from what Giles could make out he fitted the classic stereotype of an American army general. He was wide shouldered with a barrel chest covered in a rainbow of ribbons. He wore his cap down over his eyes preventing direct contact. The peak came down almost to the tip of his nose and was sharper than the parting in a nerd's hair.

"Time is of the essence," began Riley," so I'll keep this brief. This is Professor Farness. He is in charge of project Tantalus." Tantalus thought Giles. He had had one himself in his flat in Oxford. It was a wooden box used for storing decanters. The decanters were visible but without the key they couldn't be accessed, unless of course you had a straw. He found the name intriguing.

"The generals name is unimportant, all you need to know is that all units in this base report directly to me. I report to the general." Giles sneaked a look out of the corner of his eye at the military man. Giles counted five stars on his lapel. Good grief he thought, the man was probably on first name terms with the President. Giles decided to play it nonchalant.

"Commander Finn, please feel free to interest me any time you are ready."

"Certainly." Said Riley his mouth twisted into a hard line. He removed a small, silver remote from a pocket and pointed it at the doors. A steel bar slid out of one wall through some collars and buried itself in the opposite wall. On a control panel at the side of the doors red lights began to pulse. They were well and truly locked in now supposed Giles. Riley slid off the bench between him and Professor Farness and from within is depths a huge sheet of what looked like glass glided upwards until its top edge was touching a metal lined trench in the ceiling. The lights in the room dimmed to almost darkness and the screen began to glow from within. The screen was enormous, maybe five by ten meters. Images began to move within it, but they didn't seem to be confined to the glass. They appeared to have a three dimensional quality which Giles found initially difficult to focus on. Suddenly, as if a switch in his brain had been flipped he figured out the optical illusion. The swirling red visuals against the black background became understandable. At that moment they launched themselves out into the air around them until Giles felt that he was actually within the screen. He could see Riley moving before him, so he had to assume that that was the direction the floor was in. He fought the nauseating vertigo the disorientation brought.

"The Milky Way." said the Commander.

"Oh good God Finn. How long is this going to take?"

Riley ignored the Watcher and instead reached into one of the outer spiraling arms of the galaxy. The image concentrated on this region of space. The solar system filled the air around them. Giles flinched involuntarily as Neptune soared before his eyes. Riley stepped through the sun and cupped Earth in his hands. For the first time Giles noticed that Riley's right hand had been replaced with a robotic gauntlet. He wondered how much of Riley's body had been altered in this way and exactly what had happened to him. Now was not the time.

"Earth." said Finn. The image of the third planet orbiting Helios expanded filling the room. Giles wondered where exactly on its surface he was. Riley touched the image again. The geographic representation was overlaid with a wire frame structure that resembled a soccer ball. As the earth rotated Riley pointed to different sections.

"The Bermuda triangle…Loch Ness…the Dacono ruins…the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. Where there is smoke," he said," there is a section underlying the pattern." Giles had to admit that his intellectual curiosity had been piqued. Where was Riley going with all this?

Riley waved his gauntlet through the Earth and the geography dissolved leaving the spinning wire frame.

"Do you know what this is Mr. Giles?"

"Riley's Believe it or not." Riley smiled a thin smile.

"No. A Buckyball."

"Of course. How dim of me." Mumbled Giles to himself.

"The third state of carbon, after graphite and diamond. Two scientists Buckminster and Fullerene theorized its existence. Only after it was conceived was it discovered in nature. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Riley's voice trailed off, he seemed to be in a daze of some sort.

"Have you brought me all this way to reveal the bedroom secrets of Mrs. Chicken? I assure you I will not. Her honor is safe with me."

"Shut up," barked the General over his shoulder," or we'll see what having your legs cut off does for your concentration."

Giles reconsidered his decision to play it nonchalant. Riley continued with the briefing. He touched the wire frame and it reverted to the turning Solar System. Giles ducked anticipating the return of Neptune.

"You may be thinking that this is the Solar System. You'd be wrong this is a carbon atom. Those aren't planets Mr. Giles they are electrons. We went from the galactic to the sub atomic and you noticed no difference. Fractals Mr. Giles. Two natural systems identical in complexity with the same repeating patterns yet separated by the Grand Canyon in scale."

Giles was a man who held intellect in high regard, he was very proud of his intelligence and the discipline it had required to refine his mind. If there is one thing no educated man likes it is to be talked down to. Something about the way Finn kept referring to him as Mr. Giles made him want to break his neck.

"Its identical to the previous image you showed me."

"Actually," said Professor Farness," its not. If it was the solar system there would be nine orbiting bodies and that would be a flourine atom. This has six, its carbon."

Giles fumed.

"I am still unenlightened as to why I am here." Professor Farness stepped forwards and indicated the carbon nucleus that Giles had mistaken for the sun.

"This is the bit of the atom that has all the mass. The weight of the orbiting electrons is negligible; they are more wave than particle. The more you know about their position around the nucleus the less you know about the direction they are moving in and vice versa. They can however be defined by their wave function."

"Wave function?" Giles was beginning to feel badly out of his depth.

"Are you familiar with New Age crystal therapy?"

"I am. I have used it many times in the training of the Slayer." Giles felt happier hearing words he recognized.

"Each crystal has its own harmonic or wave function that identifies it. So too does every particle in the universe, not just the electrons."

"So the nucleus has its own harmonic then?" ventured Giles.

"Ah no," sighed Professor Farness," if only it were that simple."

He brushed the image of the carbon nucleus and it dissolved into a myriad of smaller particles. He began to recite different names, all strange to Giles. Quarks, gluons, Higgs bosons…

"Sadly this signifies the limits of mans knowledge. What you are seeing are representations of the most esoteric fragments of man's understanding of Particle

Physics. This is where energy meets matter, the theoretical worlds of Einstein and Heisenberg."

Giles shook his head as the protoparticles began to interact. He sympathized with how Buffy must have felt during their many training sessions. He decided he must apologize for the many times he had been unintentionally obtuse. As he watched, the protoparticles mixed and spiraled around him, blending like milk in a cup of hot tea, finally settling into red swirls against a dark background.

"The universe.' said Giles aghast.

"Fractals Mr. Giles." said Riley; he remembered this realization and he sympathized.

Professor Farness switched on the lights and the images disappeared as the screen slid back down into the bench. He sat at the circular table with Giles and the stoic general.

"Cosmologists assure us that for the universe to exist as it does then there must be three times the mass we can see. The matter we _can_ see is called Baryonic. It's all the planets and stars and comets and plants and basically everything we can touch. The other two thirds is called dark matter. Protoparticles like I showed you that are spread throughout the universe in which the Baryonic matter floats like vegetables in soup."

"And once more Dr Fanny Craddock I implore you. Why have you brought me here?"

"We have discovered that the cosmologists are wrong. Only one third of the missing mass is dark matter."

"In the vernacular of my Slayer 'hit me'."

"One third, the baryonic matter is where life is found. The second is the dark matter…"

"And the remainder?"

"The last third is the opposite of baryonic matter. It is anti-life. In terms you may understand more clearly; Demonic matter."

Giles leaned back in his chair. One hand came up to his mouth.

"Dear God," he breathed," What have you idiots done?"

"God had nothing to do with it," snapped the general. "You are dealing with a force far more powerful and considerably more real, the red white and blue of the United States military."

Giles, a European, felt the urge to phone his embassy.

*** ***

"I take it that you are familiar with the philosophies of Antiquity."

Giles nodded.

" Socrates believed in the existence of four elements from which all matter was composed."

"Fire, air, earth and water. Yes?"

"The Socratic elements are all for want of a better word positive. Opposite poles do not cancel out; fire simply opposes the influence of water. For cancellation you have to go to the anti-elements. Those elements that compose the anti-baryonic third of the universe."

"The demonic matter."

"Exactly. The consequence of the interaction of the four elements is the fifth element Life, or as Aristotle called it 'Ether'. The demonic fifth element opposes positive life. Life and anti-Life are mutually exclusive. They are destined to compete for control of the universe."

"So where is this anti-life?"

"Surely you are more qualified to answer that question than I am." Professor Farness leaned away from the table.

"Ah. I understand. In other dimensions." Giles was a member of the Watchers council. It was not an opportunity afforded to just anyone. Only those who could trace their lineage back to the first Watchers were afforded that compliment.

"Perhaps Mr. Giles," said Riley," it is time you talked. Our knowledge is extensive but we are still unclear about the timescale being contemplated."

Giles pressed the tips of his fingers together. He thought for a second and then began.

"We are very ancient. The Vatican at two thousand years is old. The Watchers Council measures its age in dozens of Vaticans."

Riley sat at the table near Farness. Even the general had moved incrementally in the English mans direction.

"At one time far in the past both demon and human shared the planet we called Mother. There was a terrible struggle for dominance of this fertile land. It is recounted in extremely purple Babylonian prose in the Scrolls of the Nephilim, if you are interested. Anyway, the Watchers Council was a group of humans who we would nowadays consider as being prehistoric. They opposed the demons."

Giles had never before told this story, not even to Buffy. The true history of mankind and the Watchers role in humanities development was a secret that the Council kept to itself. But now that he had started he could not stop himself. He was a proud man and like all men whose power is never truly acknowledged he was prone to bouts of pomposity. The Initiative had humiliated him in a hundred different ways over the past few hours. But now he had their interest and he relished the attention. He continued unabated.

"What you must accept is that we are not the first people to have considered themselves 'rulers' of this planet. There have been many incarnations of the human race. What is now considered human is in fact a much diluted and inbred faction of what went before. Many civilizations have existed and fallen and been forgotten before now and the beginning. That the Watchers Council has maintained any of its purity is nothing short of a miracle."

"And yet maintain its purity it has. Countless civilizations have risen and collapsed and their knowledge lost to all but us. All Watchers share blood with the first ones, those prime humans who overthrew the demon overlords and cast them into their respective dimensions. Integral to their victory was the creation of the Slayer. A being that was formed by dark incantations indeed. She was brought forth to protect humanity yet her power is derived from the same source as the demons."

Riley and the general, both military men exchanged glances. Giles knew what they were thinking.

"It was to say the least a risky tactic."

He didn't want to lose them. The words were coming out of his mouth unbidden and he couldn't stop himself. He wanted to prove to them that he was more than he seemed.

"It is our profound duty as Watchers that as each new Slayer is called she is properly guided in the exertion of her powers for they are as dark as those she is intended to protect us from."

"There exist many dimensions. Hell as we know it is the core dimension of demonic life. It is ancient in the same way Life itself is ancient. Somewhere in the nether regions there exists a dimension of pure Hell, a place where the demons are legend and yet real. It is a deep and lost dimension that is the source of demon's myths about themselves. The demonic entities that exist there are of such a magnitude that they would make the Greek Gods of Olympus seem as powerful as Snap, Crackle and Pop the Rice Krispies men. It is from that most dark dimension that the Slayer's power was derived."

Riley leaned forward.

"Giles," he said. "I think we all know where you are talking about. We accidentally opened a doorway to it downstairs and we can't keep it closed much longer."

Giles stared at the serious side of Riley's face. He seemed so sincere, so childlike in his imploring honesty. Giles began to laugh. He kept laughing. He couldn't help himself. This would make Armageddon feel like a bit of a runny nose. The general's barking threats just made him laugh all the harder. They were all going to die. He slapped the stupid table with one hand and laughed his guts out.

Secret Initiative Base

**One.**

Buffy had fallen asleep. The stress of her aching tooth combined with the effects of the painkillers and whiskey had sent her over into a fitful rest. Anya and Spike chatted sporadically as the BMW hurtled across the dark Californian mountains and down into the desert beyond.

Occasionally the BMWs speed attracted attention. Red and blue flashing lights would whip out of slip roads but Giles infatuated sports car soon reduced them to little twinkles on the receding horizon.

Anya and Spikes conversation consisted mostly of reminiscing. Demons and magic creatures they had once known. Anya's memory went back further than Spike's by a few centuries and she took pleasure in filling him in on the less than prodigious beginnings of beings that had one time or another either kicked Spikes ass or been the ass-kickee.

Sometimes Spike laughed as he recalled the many lives he had put an end to. Anya quite liked Spike. She found him passably attractive in an undead kind of way. He was funny and didn't care whether anyone liked him or not. Anya had never known Spike before the Initiative had neutered him so she had no memory of what it was to fear him. In truth she felt for the man within the demon. She knew what it was like to be disliked for what you had once been. Anya was very into second chances.

However as he talked, smoking his cigarettes and air surfing with one hand out the window she got a clearer idea of why every time Xander spoke his name it was with disdain. Spike was being careful she realized. The reminiscing had revolved around supernatural entities. He had been very careful to avoid the subject of mortals he had interacted with in the past. This spoke volumes to Anya.

She kept her hands tight on the wheel as a police cruiser came out of nowhere ahead of them and tried to block the road. The steering wheel moved of its own accord sending them into the scrub before guiding them through a rising cloud of dust and back onto the road. Spike leaned out the window and gave them the fingers. For the first time the police shot at them. A few badly aimed bullets cut the air around the BMW.

"Jesus," said Spike, "looks like the boys in blue are onto us."

"Should we wake Buffy?"

"Yeah. Why not? Not right she should be missing all the fun." He leaned forwards to wake the Slayer and then stopped.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's not been feeling well. She's got a bad toothache. It's probably infected." From the corner of her eye she watched Spike. His chin was resting on the shoulder of Buffy's seat and he was peering at the Slayer the way new parents peer over a crib at their cub. He reached down and removed an errant lock of hair that had wrapped itself around her nose. He stroked it back into place.

"Her mouth is very swollen," said Anya.

"Yeah." said the vampire, "and her heart is erratic and I can smell the toxins in her blood. Too much booze for Buffy." There was tenderness to his voice that impressed Anya.

"Guess she won't be needing this anymore." Spike reached over and plucked the nearly empty bottle of Wild Turkey from Buffy's lap. He settled back down in the back seat. The car drove onwards. Inexorably taking them closer to Giles. Anya mentally backtracked to what they had been talking about before the police had shot at them.

"So how many people do you think you've killed?"

She knew that if he had a reflection his flinty eyes would be glinting in the rear view mirror. As it was she could feel him glaring at the back of her head. She had crossed a line. Xander had told her about this sort of thing.

"Enough to survive pet. I was no Angel. Never a sadist."

"Have you ever put a number to the names?"

"Have you?" retorted Spike.

He glugged from the bottle of Turkey.

"There were times when many people died. When it was just Dru and I fewer died, just enough to keep us healthy and entertained. But back when it was the four of us. When Darla was the boss…" He trailed off a humorless smile on his face.

"It was always the fight with me love. I lived to win. When I had a soul I never came out on top. But now, well Spike is a name to be feared. Ask the Slayer. I'm the only one that's done it twice. The only vamp that's ever put two of the bitches to my mouth."

"Not any more though." Said Anya tapping the back of her head.

Spike slowly leaned forwards. He breathed fumes of alcohol and fetid animal blood over the back of her neck.

"If you are a human that is," he hissed, "otherwise beware. The fight isn't over yet demon; it's just a new round. By the way you might want to go round that police roadblock."

The police had obviously radioed ahead and predicting their route had thrown up a barricade. At least seven cars were parked across the lanes two vehicles deep. The spotlights on their roofs clicked on and angled up the road towards the approaching BMW.

"I can't see," wailed Anya trying to turn the wheel. The car maintained its sub-sonic path that took them straight through the roadblock. Muzzle flashes appeared from between the Arizona State Troopers cars. The windscreen lit up in a sudden bright red luminescence.

"What the Hell was that?" shouted Spike.

As they got closer the trooper's aim improved. They pumped their shotguns furiously trying to destroy the cars engine. Each time the shots were accurate the BMW would light up with a deep red protective light that stopped the ammunition inches from the bodywork. The pellets then rattled off the paint as the car surged through them.

"I don't think we're going to stop," yelled Spike.

"Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap."

The BMW was attracting so much firepower that as it tore down the road it flared as if its fuel tank was on fire. It streaked along the highway with its three occupants and took the roadblock on dead center. Inside the car the impact felt like they had accidentally and regrettably run over a rodent instead of totaling tens of thousands of taxpayers dollars.

Spike watched through the rear window. The State troopers dived for cover as their vehicles ricocheted around them. One car was pinched between two others and sent straight up into the air where it did two full revolutions before crashing back to earth with an impact that shattered all of its windows. The shards scattered across the highway like diamonds. One trooper was still doing somersaults high in the air as Spike leaned out the window and hollered,

"ALRIGHT! We Rock!"

"They were shooting at us. They shouldn't have been shooting at us. We have rights. They should have read us them so we would have known what they are." babbled Anya.

"Where's my whiskey gone?"

"Buffy you're awake. I can't take it anymore. I run the Magic Box and count the money and love Xander. I don't do this. Giles is your Watcher; he's your problem. I don't know what I'm doing here. He dies I get the shop. Why am I here? And look how I'm dressed." Anya took her hands from the wheel for the first time since they had left Sunnydale and sobbed into them.

"Better get your act together love cause we got more company of the flashing lights variety."

"Spike! What the Hell are you doing here?" shouted Buffy. "Anya get a grip. Where are we? Tell me what's going on."

"Just look at the clothes I'm going to die in. It's not fair. It's just not fair."

Buffy grabbed the steering wheel and tried to assess the situation. Her head was pounding from the alcohol and she had the worst case of cottonmouth in the world.

"Spike I have no idea where you came from and I don't care just tell me what's happening. Quickly."

"Giles mental car just ploughed through a dozen of Arizona's finest, we haven't the remotest idea where we are, you don't need to hold the wheel cause the car steers by itself and there are two super charged highway eaters right on our ass. There, that quick enough?"

"They catching?"

"Nah. Just holding on."

The BMW lurched left and through the windscreen the moon performed a sickening ninety-degree turn. The car bounced across some rough desert before it found a small dirt track.

"That slowed them but they're still on us."

"Is there anything we can throw out the window to slow them down?"

"Just Spike." Said Anya recovering some of her decorum.

"Hey!"

"I'll bear it in mind for later Anya."

"Hey! I just bloody said Hey. We are not throwing Spike out the bleeding window ok?"

Buffy smiled at Spike. His vampire senses could read her like a scanning electron microscope but he couldn't decipher that smile.

"Car seems to know what it's doing so I reckon we're just along for the ride." He said sullenly, slouching back in the seat.

Buffy nodded and checked the weapons at her feet. She checked the tension of the crossbow and the sharpness of the blade of the axe and that Mr. Pointy was where he was supposed to be. She was nervous and in desperate need of a glass of water. Her tooth was starting to hurt again.

At some point they were going to come to a stop, who knew what was going to happen then? They would be near Giles, or at least as close as Anya's magic could take them. Would he be all right? Would whoever had taken him just let him go? She severely doubted it. The more she thought about it the less she thought it was the Watchers Council that were behind this. This just felt wrong for them. They didn't hide in the desert miles from anywhere or anyone. A suspicion began to grow in her mind and it brought a very unpleasant prospect with it.

She wound down the window of the car and let the cool air blow into her mouth. So here she was, in a possessed car hurtling through the night with Anya, who would need protecting and Spike, who she dare not turn her back on straight towards a probable fight to the death against unknowable numbers of unknown enemies in order to rescue her Watcher. Except for her damn tooth life really didn't get much better than this.

"I think we're about to leave the road," said Anya. The Beemer decided not to take a turn in the dirt track and instead continued in a straight line through the tumbleweed.

"Anya," said Buffy pointing ahead, "What's that?"

Anya peered over the steering wheel and squinting shook her head.

"Electric perimeter fence," said Spike from the back. Buffy was able to read 'Keep Out' on a sign before the BMW sliced right through it. The wire of the fence recoiled like a sprung mattress sparking uselessly. The two pursuing troopers braked hard and came to a stop at the edge of the prohibited area.

"Something tells me that we may have stood a better chance with the peelers," said Spike. Buffy shrugged and inside the car all three grew silent. They were close now, they could feel it.

Giles' car sped through the desolation and began to climb a steep incline. It crested to the top and carried on through the air. Inside the car the sky seemed to drop like a curtain showing less earth and more stars. Buffy' stomach came up into her throat then the car slammed down bouncing hard on the suspension. Before them the view had changed drastically. It now resembled a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The desert was frying pan flat for miles in every direction. Directly before them, perhaps two miles away, was a military base awash with lights. A large airplane was slowly lifting off and even this far away its straining engines shook the car. The base seemed to be composed of hangers and smaller, longer barracks that twisted like snakes resembling a maze.

"Initiative," said Buffy, "Has to be." Spikes hand instinctively went to the back of his head.

"What would the Initiative want with Giles?" asked Anya.

"I don't know and I care even less. They took my Watcher without asking. I'm taking him back."

"You seriously thinking about taking on a whole army base Slayer?"

"I'd rather not Spike but Giles is coming home with us one way or another."

Spike flashed a smile at her and smacked one fist into his hand, "Bring it on."

"Oh fuck," said Anya suddenly, "Oh fuckity fuck." She pointed towards the approaching base. Two lights had detached themselves from the base and had risen up into the air and were now coming straight for them.

"Choppers," said Buffy in a flat voice.

"Was that the right time to use that swear word? Xander said it's very bad and should only be used at moments of great anger or to turn him on during sex."

"Yeah darlin' I think that was definitely the right time. Slayer?"

"Yes I think it was the right time too."

"I meant, what about the choppers."

"I have an axe. Is that any help?"

"Against Vikings, yes but those look more like Apaches." One of the assault choppers moved behind the other and almost immediately their midi-cannons opened up. Four trails of bullet misses raked the ground in front of the BMW throwing desert high into the air. The impact against the car was deafening. Anya screamed unable to stop herself. The window beside Buffy exploded inwards showering her with hot glass.

"Spell can't cope with this shit," yelled Spike

Buffy grabbed the crossbow, leaned out the window and aimed at the rear gunship as it roared past them. She squeezed the trigger and the wooden bolt soared beautifully through the air. Guided by Buffy's Slayer reflexes the medieval weapon managed to tap against the helicopters Plexiglas windshield. It was a great tap though.

The choppers wheeled above them turning for another pass. This time they would match their speed with the car so they wouldn't fly past. The soldiers could then take it apart slowly and precisely.

"Bollocks to this," said Spike and tried to dive back through the hole in the seat.

"Buffy?"

"Keep going Anya."

They were in the compound now. To their right and left barracks whisked past. Buffy reckoned they wouldn't fire within the base for fear of hitting their own men and equipment. She was wrong. The Apaches opened up again. Most of the bullets seemed to be missing but one of the bastards aim was dead on. When you're dealing with thirty-mm ammunition coming from helicopters one is all you need to get right.

The car's bonnet exploded in front of them cob webbing the windshield. The car died on the spot, only momentum kept it going forwards now. Anya grabbed the wheel as she struggled to control the eighty-mile an hour vehicle. She hit the brakes. The car slewed from side to side heading directly for one of the squat buildings.

"Brace yourself Anya," shouted Buffy folding her arms across her face.

The Apaches pulled back and rose straight up into the air. They didn't want to get caught in any unnecessary explosions.

The apple of Giles eye hit the concrete wall at over fifty miles an hour. It stopped at the exact spot the building started and all its energy was transferred to its passengers. It rose up at the rear and the wall flew apart as Spikes unrestrained body flew through the windscreen like a flapping black cannon ball. Buffy's air bag inflated and she head butted it spectacularly. The pain was instant and intense. She thought of the Aerosmith video where the wee guy from the Terminator movie stole a car and wrecked it for the laughs. That hadn't looked like it had hurt at all. What a load of crap.

There was something in her mouth. She put a finger into the bleeding orifice and found that her diseased tooth was no longer in her gum.

"Oh," said Anya, "Your tooth came out. That's supposed to be good luck. If you put it under your pillow you'll get money although I don't think the fairies like rotten teeth so you'll probably not get very much. Nasty little bunny fanciers."

"You okay Anya?"

"No. I think I might have wet myself."

There were shouts from somewhere to their left.

"Anya. We have to move. Now."

"But what about my urine?"

Buffy extracted herself from the wreck and physically hauled Anya out of her own seat. Anya's legs were shaky but she managed to stay on her feet.

"Where to now?" she asked.

"I don't know. Just run."

And that was exactly what the two women did.


	14. Chapter 14

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Two**

Professor Farness led Giles into a small antechamber off the main corridor on this level. Giles was unsure how deep they were underground though during the elevator ride down his ears had popped. It felt warmer down here. Perhaps the increase in the ambient temperature was simply due to the rift, and the energies it was throwing off. But it may also have meant they were very, very deep under the ground.

The professor spoke into a grill and a door before him opened. He motioned Giles in. The door closed behind the Englishman. There was another door before him identical to the one he had just passed through and on the two walls that did not have doors there were racks of safety clothing. The professor indicated that Giles should put a set on and then began to undress. He quickly stripped naked and pulled on the one-piece jump suit the army had issued them with.

Giles examined his own suit. It was made of a black synthetic material lighter than cotton but with the texture of rubber. He looked at the scientist beside him. He was struggling with the skintight suit and it was not a flattering sight. Giles realized that it would be very easy to over-power the other man but what would he do then and where would he go and who would deal with the rift. He knew where his responsibilities lay.

With a deep sigh Giles began to remove his own clothes. Would this days indignities never end? He turned his back to Farness and stripped down, taking time to fold his slacks and shirt.

"I didn't think you were the type."

Giles froze.

"Excuse me?"

Professor Farness indicated Giles tattoo.

"Ah. Thank god." Said Giles as he continued pulling on the sticky jumpsuit. "Although I have always been descended from the first Watchers I have not always seen eye to eye with the Council. There have been times of estrangement."

"Couple of skeletons in the closet Mr. Giles?"

"Its hard to be a man and not have a few regrets." Giles put a lot of emphasis on the word 'man'. Farness picked up on it.

"Mr. Giles I can assume what you think of me. Of us. I do not know what methods were used to bring you here but I am sure you didn't travel first class."

Giles pulled up the hood of his protective suit and glared at the other man.

"Don't be naive Mr. Giles. Blame me if it makes you feel better but don't be naïve. I'm just a man trying to do his job the same as everyone else. We have more in common than you might believe."

"What could we possibly have in common?" spat Giles.

"We're expendable." Said Farness.

Giles nodded. He looked at the thin man before him in his badly fitting suit that kept none of his secrets. An understanding was reached between the two. They were perhaps not friends though neither were they enemies.

"The way you call me Mr. Giles irritates me greatly. My name is Rupert."

"Terry." Said Farness.

The scientist pulled on a hard hat and a facemask with filters and polarized lenses. Giles did the same thing. He was nearly completely blind due to the black eyepieces. The professor's voice came through on an earphone hidden in the mask.

"In the next room is the rift. I think it is important that you see what is ahead of us for yourself."

The second door in the room slid open and Giles realized why the dark lenses were necessary. It was like walking into the heart of a star.

*** ***

There were shouts coming from all around them now. Buffy put her hands in Anya's back and made the girl run quicker. They ducked between oil drums and crates covered in brown camouflage netting. When they ran along the high white walls of the hangers they kept low, petrified of being spotted. Buffy was convinced that they would be shot on the spot and she had no desire to find out what that felt like.

On either side of them the pair they were surrounded by the barrack buildings. They were all low, squat, flat roofed and windowless. Buffy leapt up and grabbing the edge of one roof pulled herself up to have a look about. Anya sat down in some shadows and tried not to think about how scared she was. Suddenly Buffy started motioning frantically. Anya scrambled under some netting just as a squad of heavily armored Initiative soldiers ran past. She could hear their boots clattering on the wooden walkways that seemed to run all over the base. Anya thought that the line of men was never going to stop.

Eventually the sound died away. They hadn't been found. Anya nearly jumped out of her skin when Buffy slipped around the crate and with a thin smile grabbed Anya and hoisted her to her feet. The two ran in the direction the soldiers had just come from. There was a door open in one of the barracks.

Buffy had run along the roof when she had seen where the squad had emerged from and leaping silently to the ground had rolled behind them and wedged Mr. Pointy in the doorway jamming the entrance open. She retrieved the stake and let the door close behind them as together they slipped into the Initiatives base. Although the door had been old and weathered on the outside, the inside was a different story.

It was exactly how Buffy expected an Initiative base to be. The door clicked shut and the hot and dark desert was replaced with a sterile and white interior.

"It's very clean," said Anya.

"It's certainly not contaminated with English men."

"I just meant. Its better than crawling around filthy graveyards and crypts."

"At least they have places to hide and weapons to use." Anya gave up as a grim faced Buffy took a few steps down the corridor swinging her axe from side to side. The corridor was a perfectly straight room that simply seemed to act as a connection between outside and inside. About twenty meters ahead there were a pair of doors that looked like the entrance to an elevator shaft. Half way along the corridor the floor began to slope; from the level of the outside down to the elevator doors.

"Come on Anya." Said Buffy, "We have to keep moving."

"We were shot at."

"I noticed Anya."

"I've never been shot at before. If I get my hands on a gun I'm shooting back. I've had enough of people shooting at me tonight."

"No-one is getting shot while I'm around Anya." Buffy slipped an arm around Anya and helped her along. Just at that moment the outside door was opened just enough to allow a soldier to poke the barrel of a gun through.

Buffy felt the change in air pressure and reacted instinctively. Her Slayer senses knew that she had just become open to an attack from behind. With movements that she performed faster than she could think them Buffy changed her grip on Anya. She slid her right forearm into Anya's armpit, dropped the axe, took hold of Anya's wrist with her left hand, then snapping Anya's arm into a lock, bent it across her own chest and with a twisting snap catapulted the other woman down the corridor. Anya hit the ground at an oblique angle and slid along the tiles onto the slope where she disappeared out of the soldiers' line of sight.

Still turning Buffy drew a knee high up into her chest and leapt up into the air. A soldier emerged from the doorway. He reacted quickly, raising his strange weapon to his chest. It wasn't fast enough. Buffy drove her foot out as hard as she could and the gunstock hammered him right between the pectorals. He grunted and flew straight back against the wall hitting it with all the grace of a three-cheese pizza. Another soldier, this one carrying a long knife took his place but Buffy was still moving forwards. She jabbed her fingers into his forearm and the knife spun into the air. Still turning she extended one foot and raised the other from the floor to his jaw as fast as she was able. His lights winked out and he went down like a sack of hammers.

Buffy caught the knife and swept it to her side. It parried the edge of another blade that had been moving in her direction and threw sparks across the corridor. A few fast punches dropped that cretin.

The door was still open and this was a problem, their position would have been reported by now. Reinforcements would be on the way and she had as yet no idea how many were outside. She needed to put distance between them and Anya as well as blocking the corridor. The door!

She snapped a push kick into the bottom third of the door and the bottom hinge blew out of the wall. A huge soldier squeezed through the doorway pushing his massive frame against Buffy. He tried to shimmy to her side but he was too big for such a delicate maneuver. Buffy went the opposite way and threw a roundhouse toward his head. He blocked it beautifully and countered with a right that went straight through her guard and connected hard with her face. The next thing she knew she was on the floor. He was above her and one huge boot was raised. She kicked at his knees and he crumpled as bones broke. Buffy flipped onto her feet and lifted him high into the air with an uppercut. He crashed back against the door and the top hinge blew. The giant teetered against the broken door as it bent and twisted in the doorway. Buffy chided her self, her aim had been off, she had hoped he would rip it right off.

She ran at him and leapt up and went into the splits wedging herself high in the air. She stopped herself by placing a hand on his massive forehead. She bent his head back and he peered up at her. Then she drew back her arm until the elbow was touching the ceiling and drove a punch right between his eyes. His feet were squeezed out from underneath him and he did the Titanic in fast motion.

The door flipped into the air and she caught it then dropped down and rammed it hard into him. He roared as a blunt guillotine caught him right across the abdomen. She pushed the top of the door into the opposite corner and he gasped as the contents of his lungs were forced out. A blue flash went off outside and twin Tazer needles stuck into the wood near her face. She ducked down out of their range and grabbed the axe. The door might not be locked but that would slow them down she hoped.

She tried to run but the giant wasn't finished yet. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her down to the ground beside him. He yanked a grenade off his shoulder grip and put it into a wide smile. Holding the pin between his sweaty teeth he ripped it out and spat it at her.

"You stop here demon. You're not having earth, I'll die first. We all will."

Buffy twisted but his grip was maniacal and strong like Riley's roid rage. The grenade sprung open in his hand. Buffy raised the axe, his arm or her life; easy choice.

Anya stepped past her and her big ugly easy sneaker chipped the grenade out of his hand and out the doorway. There was a scream of 'CHRIST!' from outside and Buffy heaved and broke free. She and Anya sprinted down the corridor.

"We're all going to Hell. Yee hah!" screamed the giant and the grenade detonated. The entrance to the Initiative base collapsed dropping rubble into the corridor.

"I got the elevator open. It only goes down."

"Down it is then." Shouted Buffy as she passed the only soldier that had managed to get past her. The one she had knocked past her. The elevator doors were propped open and they ran down the slope and into the carriage colliding against the back wall. Buffy frantically searched for buttons that would take them down.

"Its automatic I think." Shouted Anya, "I propped it open."

She bent down and pulled the prop from between the doors. They slid closed and the lift immediately began to descend.

Buffy sat down and tried to catch her breath. They were safe for the moment.

"Anya. What's that?" She indicated the firearm Anya had propped the door open with. She was holding it in a very business like way across her chest.

"I think it's a PK-46 Multimelter," she said reading the writing on its side. "I've decided to keep it."

Buffy spat out some blood.

"Anya. I really don't want any ones life on your conscience. Please don't use that. I'm not going to stop you but I'm begging you not to use that."

"I don't have your powers. You are the Slayer. I'm just a girl but now I'm a girl with a gun and it's my right to protect myself and I'm going to. At least until they give us time to explain ourselves. That's fair."

Buffy relented and checked her pockets for Mr. Pointy. In the same way an asthmatic likes to tap their inhaler Buffy liked to be sure Mr. Pointy was always close by.

"Just make sure I'm well behind you when you fire that thing."

"Sure. You point at it and I'll multimelt it." Anya made a few practice aims.

"Do you even know what it does?"

Anya stared at the trigger then put her finger in the end of the barrel.

"Yes. Well, no. No I don't."

"Well you've the amount of time it takes me to open the hatch in the roof to find out."


	15. Chapter 15

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Three**

They were on a balcony looking down on Las Vegas' Luxor Casino. He had never seen anything as bright as the rift. Its light was so brilliant that it had the quality of a painfully loud rock concert. Giles followed Farwell along the balcony with one hand on the rail. The room they were looking out over was enormous; it would dwarf many British villages, thought Giles. In its center was the pulsing star that was the gateway to Hell, a man made Hellmouth.

"Have you any idea what we should do? How we should proceed."

Giles knelt against the barricade and squinted into the heart of the Tantalus.

"Who is it? Who have you got in there?"

"That's classified Rupert."

"Oh bollocks. Tell me who that is. How long have they been in there, Terry?"

Farness hesitated, "Nearly twenty hours."

"Good Lord, the poor bastard. What are the dimension's chronological qualities?"

"Unknown. Multiple times are manifest in this slide. It's possible that the Tantalus has experienced infinite millennia or that it has only been a nanosecond of consciousness.

Whichever, I don't think he can stay in there any longer." Giles picked up on the sex of the Tantalus.

"I'm afraid he's going to have to. To close the rift I will need to enter it myself. I sense that his power has been sufficient to hold the enemy at stalemate. If I join him I may be able to add what little I have to his own energy. That perhaps will tilt the balance in favor of the pit closing."

"We can get you whatever you need. We have extensive collections of magic paraphernalia in our stores."

"You can start by telling me how this happened. What did you do that opened the rift?"

"I spoke of harmonics I did not speak of blood. Blood is the largest continuous organ that the body possesses. It goes everywhere and is the same in all extremities; blood is the essence of life. It is also the medium through which the vampire pathogen is commuted, an anti-life parasitism.

But when all the components of biological life are removed from blood all that remains is seawater. Blood is the early evolutionary environment we still carry about with us. In the same way an astronaut carries oxygen into space so too do we carry the oceans from whence we came. The memory of blood is the memory of our DNA. This seawater, when examined, has a harmonic unique to each species. We hoped to learn the demonic harmonic and reverse it. Produce a weapon that we could use against them."

"How many things went wrong?"

"Only one thing, the first thing. We captured a suitable hostile. They were a species other demons called the Pnarwaidh. All the Pnarwaidh had zero fluctuations in their harmonic; each one was identical to the other. This should have been impossible, there should have been some dilution of the purity through generations of breeding. These demons were perfectly opposed to humanity. They were composed of pure anti-life. Nothing from our dimension permeated their existence at all.

We tested the weapon on one of them. We derived its harmonic from their blood and reversed it, charged our weapon with its frequency and used it. We expected the creature to die. The hypothesis was that the opposing energy would obliterate it. Instead it went thermonuclear and the rift opened. It was as if the creature was a lock just waiting for the right key."

"Who is the Tantalus?"

"An on-base, non-military operative associated with general Markwell and Commander Finn."

Giles shook his head.

"What was going through your minds when you decided that I was the man to close the rift? I am nowhere near powerful enough. I'm a Watcher not a sorcerer."

"Rupert to be honest I don't think anyone expects you to be able to close the rift. In fact I think it would be an inconvenience if you did. We just want you to go in and keep it stable for a bit longer. We've already got what we need from you."

"What do you mean?"

"I believe the mistake we made was in reversing the creatures energy. We should have polarized the weapon. The only way to do that would be to extract the harmonic from a human with pure links to our past."

Farness pointed at Giles elbow. Giles suddenly became aware of a small ache in the crook. He touched his arm sealed in the suit and it felt sore, as if he'd had an injection.

"Very little was taken Rupert. It certainly proved commander Finn correct when he recommended you as the man we needed."

"You plan to make a weapon out of my blood?"

"Yes Rupert. You see its very good blood."

*** ***

Buffy wedged the axes blade into the seam between the elevator doors and turned it clockwise. The doors slid apart a few inches. It was all she needed. She peered through the crack.

"Coast seems to be clear Anya."

Anya nodded.

Buffy squeezed her fingers into the fissure back to back and forced the doors open. She hopped out of the elevator shaft and hoisted Anya up. They ran down the corridor side by side with Buffy letting the axe hang loose in her hand and Anya with the Multimelter pointing directly ahead. It was only going to be a matter of time before the Initiative figured out where they were. There were only so many places people climbing down an elevator shaft would end up.

"This is a maze," said Anya.

Doors led off the corridor every few yards but they ran past them, wary that at any second one might open. Anya followed Buffy along a succession of turns and branches and down a flight of stairs until she realized that the Slayer had no better an idea of where they were going than she did.

"Buffy stop. I have to catch my breath."

"In a moment, when I'm sure we're safe."

They were at the bottom of a stairwell. Buffy opened the metal fire door that led into the corridor beyond and then grabbed Anya by the scruff and flew with her straight across the corridor and through the door opposite."

"Hey."

"Shut up Anya. Please."

The room was L shaped and apparently deserted. Buffy took it all in quickly. She could see three doors other than the one they had just come through. On their left was one that said 'Disposal", before them a pair of double doors that said 'Cells' and just to their right a third that said 'Surgery'. Opposite the surgery there was a long stainless steel bench with multi-positional lamps on it. Between the disposal and cells doors there were a series of deep sinks with surgical glove dispensers and first aid kits on the wall above them. There was a concoction of smells in the air.

The obvious initial smell was that of lemons and bleach but under that artificially clean odor there was a deep animal stench that washing would never remove. It was a fecund and oily reek, as if a herd of large male mammals was frequently marched through the room on their way to rutting season.

"Anya check the surgery."

"Where are we?"

"One of the Initiatives' Hostile holding centers. We should be safe here for a while. No one would expect us to surround ourselves with demons." Except Riley, she thought. If she had the time she would have got done on her knees and prayed that he wasn't involved in this. She didn't want to face dealing with an ex right now.

Anya had thoughts of her own. She was ruminating over Buffy's use of the word 'safe'. In Anya's opinion that girl didn't know the meaning of the word. Safe meant secure and free from danger. Or it could mean a lockable box for keeping your money in when you weren't counting it. Safe did not mean what she was doing right now.

'Safe' thought Anya as she shouldered open the surgery door and shouted, "Hands up."

Nothing moved.

"I mean it. Hands up or I'll turn you into the squishy guy from Robocop."

Still nothing moved.

"Okay," she said, "Safe Buffy. This rooms safe."

It was a small room. Before her was another stainless steel bench with more of the directional lights, about a dozen gas cylinders and two computers. Anya set the multi-melter on the surgical table and walked around it to the computers. She moved one mouse and a Babylon 5 screen saver disappeared to reveal a desktop that looked vaguely familiar. She double clicked on a military green E icon. Access to the Internet appeared on the screen. She typed in Willow's address and typed in a quick message.

*Buffy says we're safe. I'm not so sure. Tell Xander I love him. A. * She pulled down a few heart emoticons and then pressed send. No alarms went off and the screen returned to the desktop. Even soldiers must have friends she thought.

Anya picked up the multi-melter and went back out into the L shaped room. She was alone. The Slayer was nowhere to be seen. Fear began to well under Anya's tongue like an abscess.

"Buffy," she whispered, "Where are you?"

There was no answer.

"Buffy," she hissed.

She tightened her grip on the weapon and tried the disposal door. It was locked. She turned and faced up the room towards the double doors that led to the cells. They seemed very far away and yet right at the end of her nose. She cautiously crept towards them until she could read a small warning on one of the doors.

PNARWAIDH (250-499)

NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS

GRADE TEN HOSTILE


	16. Chapter 16

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Four**

General Butch Markwell threw open the doors to his office and marched past his personal assistant. He didn't say anything to her; he didn't like her very much. She was ugly.

He stormed into his private office with the P.A. chasing after him.

"Captain Galloway is waiting for you."

Captain Galloway who had been sitting at the Generals desk snapped to attention and saluted. "I have eyes Miss. Bush. Tell Finn I want to see him and Bush?"

"Yes general."

"Get out."

A wide smile crept over Galloway's face as the doors closed. He waited for the general to speak.

"Good job with the extraction, that pompous English bastard didn't know his ass from his momma's face when he got here."

Markwell removed his uniform jacket and hung it over a punch-bag mannequin.

"Did everything go according to plan?"

"Almost to the letter sir." Galloway considered telling the general about the English man nearly dying when the polyresinous foam that they had secured him with blocked all his airways. He decided not to. It hadn't been his fault. The solvents the tech boys had given them had taken much longer to work than they were supposed to. Galloway's own head had been swimming in the fumes so it was no wonder that the Watcher had been so easy to deceive.

"What's the situation topside?"

"A civilian automobile collided with one of our garages. Minimal damage. Three civilians were involved. One has been detained, the other two, women sir, have minimal space left to work in. Their apprehension is imminent."

The general bared his teeth at the thought of two intruders being loose on his base.

"Anything else?"

"The detained civilian was a hostile."

"Really? Treat them all as hostiles. Galloway, I want them on a dissection table five minutes ago. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir."

Markwell ripped a tissue from a box on the table and blew his nose. Then he wiped sweat from his brow with the same rag.

"Where is the hostile now?"

"Forgive me sir but I anticipated your next order. He's on your range. Alley three."

"Excellent. Monitor the situation topside. Dismissed."

Galloway saluted and left the private office. The door didn't close. Finn marched in.

"Sir?"

"Come with me Finn, brief me as we walk."

Riley followed Markwell through the door that led from his private office to his private gun range. The general's quarters were there, at the top of the range surrounded by guns. Markwell walked along a small corridor then up a flight of steps while riley talked. He swept aside a dark curtain and stepped into his pride and joy with the very unique targets.

"Butch." Said a woman in a deep and throaty growl. The woman adjusted her demeanor as she realized that the general was not alone.

"Commander Finn. So good to see you again."

"Miss. Jackenzie. How are you?"

Markwell ignored the woman who was sitting at a small circular table that had only room for two. There was an open bottle of wine before her and her glass was full.

"So the English man's blood was a fit?"

"Almost exactly sir. Farwell's people ran a refinement program on the harmonic and it had ninety-nine point oh four relevancy. Eight percent above predicted."

"Excellent. When will the weapon be ready?"

"I was on my way to check progress before I was called here. Very soon I am assured, well before division two will be in position."

"Again excellent. How goes the deployment?"

"Division one is in place at the gate waiting to go into the rift. They are awaiting download as soon as Farwell gives us the go ahead. Ariel gold is at seventy percent readiness; six more Hueys have to come down the chute before Division two can start their descent. Two hours maximum sir."

Markwell referred to his watch and his eyes inadvertently flicked in Miss. Jackenzies direction. He walked towards her but ignored her smile and reached past her for a large rifle on the wall." He took some ammunition from a red box and slotted two enormous shells into the barrels and put the remainder into his pockets.

"What do you think of our tactics Finn?" Markwell put the stock of the powerful weapon to his shoulder and took aim at the squirming hostile fifty yards away.

"I think Mr. Giles said it best when he said risky."

Markwell tensed.

"Expound."

The general closed one eye and peered along the barrel and aligned the target with the hostiles right knee.

"Sir, permission to speak freely?"

Markwell nodded almost imperceptibly and squeezed the trigger. The report was deafening and the general grunted with the force of the recoil. The creatures leg joint came apart at the seams shredding denim and spraying gluts of gore over the wall it was restrained to. White knuckles of bone could be seen protruding from the injury. The hostile thrashed wildly against its restraints. The tape over its mouth reduced the volume of its pain.

Riley stepped forwards until he could see the hostile the general was shooting at. It was second from the left of six.

"Sir with respect I think we are acting rashly."

Markwell raised the gun and punched a hole the size of a baby's head through the hostile's chest. He found that usually quietened them down, stopped them from moving about. All that wriggling spoilt his aim.

"There has been no movement on the enemy side for almost as long as the rift has been open. I believe that we must assume they are doing exactly as we are. Massing their troops and preparing for invasion."

Markwell broke the gun and the empty cartridges popped out. He loaded two more and snapped it shut. It went back to his shoulder. He was giving Riley room to talk. Whether he was truly interested in what the commander had to say or whether he was just seeing how much rope Riley wanted to hang himself with was unclear.

"It all depends upon the timing. Under current conditions the Tantalus could fall apart at any moment. We can no longer predict how long he can keep the rift stable and we are not at present able to defend our selves sufficiently."

"So what is your conclusion Commander Finn?"

Markwell dropped the target to the hostile right hip. He wanted to see if he could make the leg come off.

"The logical path would be to close the rift altogether. We know where they are. They have always known where we are. We come off better in the current battle."

"But what about the war Finn? Don't represent your men. What does the warrior in you say?"

Markwell squeezed the trigger again but this time the creature shifted to the side and the bullet punched a hole the size of a fist out of the wall. Markwell cursed, he hated to miss. And the expression on the creatures face wasn't helping his blood pressure. It flipped him the bird, its hand still caught in the restraint. That wasn't going anywhere. Markwell emptied the final chamber into it and fingers flew in all directions.

"The war sir? The commander in me feels we should cut our loses now. But the warrior I have been trained to be believes that we should take every thing we have and shove it down their throats. I think the original plan to take the fight to the demons and cut their evil off at the source is correct. I believe the reasoning behind opening the rift in the first place is sound. I say we invade Hell and the risks be damned."

Markwell held the gun in the crook of his arm.

"You surprise me Finn. I really didn't think I was going to be able to leave this room alive."

"Sir I am a soldier and I am a damn fine one. I am also Initiative. I know exactly what we are up against. When you have the perfect headshot you don't waste time putting on a bayonet in case it goes wrong. You take your shot."

Markwell slid another two bullets into the rifle barrels.

"Enough innocents have died. We can't wait tens of thousands of years to try this again. The ape-men did it before. Its up to us not to drop the ball now."

Markwell nodded.

"Check on the weapons status and get your ass down to Division one. You're leading us in Finn. Dismissed."

Riley saluted and left the room. Markwell watched the curtain long after Riley had gone through it. A soft hand sliding around his waist brought him back.

"Can I have a go?" purred Olivia.

"Certainly." Markwell handed her the rifle but she shook her head and held up an Uzi.

"More my style."

Markwell leaned the elephant gun against a wall and stood close behind her.

"He had no idea I was supposed to be dead did he?"

"No. Commander Finn is as he says a fine soldier. What he is not however is a liar. If he had had to lie about your circumstances the Watcher would have detected our deception and our hold over him would have been lost."

Olivia flipped off the safety obviously bored with that topic now.

"Does it hurt them?" she asked.

Markwell looked at the hostiles mutilated body and the blood that was literally running out of it. Innocent blood. Blood from those that had died to keep this parasite alive.

"Not enough." He growled as Olivia not waiting for an answer squeezed the trigger and emptied the whole magazine into Spike.


	17. Chapter 17

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Five**

Gingerly Anya separated the doors.

"Buffy?"

A corridor ran directly away from her into a long room with walls composed of glass panels. She couldn't see the Slayer. The lighting level was low but not so dim that it would hide Buffy if she had been in sight. Murmuring filled the air along with a stronger version of the musky stench from the L shaped room.

Anya was about to call out the Slayers name again but didn't; she was afraid, very afraid. Her mouth was bone dry and burnt when she tried to swallow. She slowly walked forwards with the Multimelter ready to shoot anything that moved. She wished Xander were here to rescue her but at the same time was happy that he wasn't in case he got hurt.

Anya put her back against a wall and inched towards the first Pnarwaidh holding cell. She peered across the corridor into the square shaped cell. Adrenalin squirted through her body making her shake. She couldn't see anything yet. She pressed on and her back moved off the brickwork and slid onto a glass panel. Suddenly she saw one. It was squatting in the far corner of its cell.

It was an oval shaped creature about waist height and was the color and texture of a car tire. It had two flat little feet, which its rotund belly perched upon like an incubating penguin. Two scheming red eyes were its only facial features. It shuffled sideways and looked at the woman on the other side of the glass. Anya cocked her head at the demon. It didn't look that dangerous, in fact it looked a bit docile. Comical even, she relaxed slightly.

Her peripheral vision picked up movement behind her. She whirled round just in time to see the Pnarwaidh in the cell she had her back to launch itself at her. A thin slit that ran around its center yawned apart to reveal a mouth full of ferocious fangs. Its teeth were enormous and thin and as the Pnarwaidh yawned open like an evil Pac-man Anya realized that a bite from that animal would be like falling onto a thousand pitchforks.

It struck the glass with an enormous impact that didn't seem to phase it in the slightest and gnashed at her. Thick clots of viscous fluid flew from its jaws and all over the inside of its cell. Anya stepped back her heart hammering in her chest. Another loud impact came from behind her as another Pnarwaidh launched itself at the food. The glass pane shook in its frame.

"Buffy. Where are you?"

"I'm here Anya."

Anya jumped. She recognized Buffy's voice immediately but her body was wound too tight not to react. She ran up the corridor in the direction of Buffy's voice. On either side of her Pnarwaidh launched themselves at her in frenzied but futile attacks. She screamed as she ran unable to stop herself. The Slayer was kneeling in front of a cell with two of the demons in it.

"Buffy. What are you doing?"

"What are these things?"

"Demons, demons with more teeth than brains. Come on Buffy lets go."

"There's something about these things. Something different. I can hear them in my head, whispering. They know who I am and they're terrified. They think I'm here to kill them."

"Buffy don't wig out on me. Giles. Soldiers. Guns. Remember?"

"I know," said the Slayer getting to her feet, "but there is something so familiar about these things. I know what their blood tastes like. I know what sound they make when they die I have killed countless millions of their kind and yet I've never seen them before in my life."

The Slayer stared at the Pnarwaidh with a blank face and the demons in turn cowered in a corner excreting a thin brown liquid.

"Do you want to know what they remind me of?"

Anya didn't wait for an answer. "Testicles."

Buffy stared in shock at the woman.

"I've just realized it. They are exactly like a pair of balls. Look"

Buffy looked and very slowly a smile began to grow across her face. A small laugh escaped.

"They're a bit bigger than I'm used to seeing," she said getting in on the joke.

"Oh that reminds me of when I was a vengeance demon. It was about two hundred years ago I think. I was called to exact vengeance on a man who had been unfaithful. Same old story you know? Sticking it about all over the place. I thought it was going to be just another job but when I laid eyes on him…Oh…my…God."

"Good looking?"

"I was gagging for it the second I saw him."

Buffy was laughing hard now.

"He was a slave on a plantation and I can understand why he was unfaithful, all that sweaty Southern heat and slow moving water and women virtually throwing themselves at him."

"What did you do?"

"I took the form of a Southern belle and faked a fainting fit as I walked past him. I didn't have to fake too hard; he was hard at work and all sweated up. He swept me up in his arms and escorted me back to the main house."

"How romantic."

"Yeah. He escorted me through the orchard, then he escorted me through the stables and then he took me round the back and escorted me through the basement."

"Anyah Harris! You brazen hussy." Buffy had to lean one hand against the glass pane she was laughing so hard.

"Oh what. Xander's family hadn't even come to America at that time. I think the zip code rule might be in effect."

Suddenly Anya stepped forward and punched Buffy hard on the shoulder.

"Ow. What was that for?"

"You deserved it. Do you have any idea how difficult it is being your friend? Look at all this trouble I am in and it's all because of you."

"Anya. I 'm sorry. Its not easy for me, I'm the Slayer. I wish I wasn't but there's nothing I can do. This is just my life."

"Well you make it other peoples lives too. Do you have any idea how sad Xander would be if I died?" A tear ran down her face.

"I don't want to make Xander sad."

"Neither do I Anya." Buffy stepped forwards and gave her a big hug.

"We're going to get out of this. I promise."

Anya sniffed away a tear that was bobbing at the end of her nose.

"Can we get Rupert now please? I don't want to be here anymore. I just want to go home and snuggle up with my man."

Buffy picked up the axe.

"I think we should stop running," she said, "I think Riley is here and we should give ourselves up to him and go from there. I don't want anything to happen to you. I couldn't face having to tell Xander."

Buffy's bottom lip began to tremble.

"Seeing him cry would kill me."

"He would cry and cry and cry if I died."

"It would break his beautiful and precious little heart."

The two women held each other and had a good weep. After a minute they parted feeling much better about their situation.

"I must look a sight," said Anya.

"Rough doesn't cover it girl. Let's go give ourselves up."

Anya smiled.

"Giving up is good."

"So what happened to him?"

"Who?"

"The stud."

"Well I had cursed him so when the Klan found out he had been fooling around with a lady of the house they tied a rope around his feet pulled him into a tree and lit a bonfire under him."

Buffy gasped.

"That's the thing I don't get about people. I never did when I was a demon and I still don't. Killing each other over color. Evil doesn't care about what color you are. It just cares about the depth of your soul. You'd think people would have worked that out by now."

"I think they have, a lot of them just don't care."

"So why do you waste your time saving them then?"

"Because I'm the Slayer and I have to care for everyone else."

"That sucks."

Buffy shrugged.

"If it hadn't been me called it would have been some other poor soul."

"I'm glad I wasn't called."

"I think the world is probably glad its not you Anya."

*** ***

Riley marched down the corridor. Don't think about it he told himself. You know what you have to do so do it. Just don't think about it. He stopped at his quarters and stocked up his rib compartment with biotinylated plasma and then put two more containers in each of the thigh pockets of his combats. There was a photograph of a beautiful blonde on his table. He allowed himself a moment to give her one last look then left. He went directly to the weapons laboratory.

*** ***

"Is that everything you think you will need?"

Giles ran through a mental checklist of the magical ingredients that he would need to enter the rift.

"Yes."

"I'll return soon." Farness turned to leave but Giles called him back.

"One last thing. Would you have any Iban fertility statues in your stores?"

"Iban? As in the Borneo tribe of headhunters?"

"That's them."

"Do you need one?"

Behind his mask Giles smiled ghoulishly.

"Yes please," he said.

"I'll see what we can do."

Perhaps it was the close proximity to Hell or perhaps it was because he had been pushed too far this day; whatever the reason, an idea had just occurred to Giles. And it was one nasty little viper of an idea.

"Thank you Terry."


	18. Chapter 18

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Six**

Riley swept open the doors of Farness' weapons laboratory. It was untidy and relatively empty. One of Farness' assistants, a pleasant young woman with large breasts that Riley usually found difficult to ignore approached him.

"What is the status of the weapon?"

"Commander Finn, I am happy to tell you that we have had complete success in transferring the new harmonic to the Disruptor. I am so excited, this is the culmination of years of hard work and I know that I may be speaking out of turn but I must impress upon you how integral Professor Farness has been in its conception and realization. The Professor is too modest a man to ever blow his own trumpet but I really must ask you to convey to General Markwell…"

Riley didn't have time for this shit. He bent his wrist and a hypodermic needle projected from the back of his hand. He stepped forwards and plunged it into the front of her neck delivering a paralyzing dose of niphedipine to the woman. A look of intense surprise crossed her face before the drug took effect. He caught her as she fell.

"Some help please." he called out.

There were only two other doctors in the room. They were both standing at a construction table and Riley could see the Disruptor placed between them. One ran over. Riley handed the female doctor to him then injected him too. He eased their bodies to the ground.

The third man had seen exactly what had happened. He stared wide-eyed at the cyborg. Riley retracted the syringe and walked up to him.

"I have a few questions for you. I want you to answer them quickly and honestly and when I tell you to I want you to turn your back to me. Understand?"

"Please don't kill me. I have a family."

"Is the weapon primed?"

"Oh God. Yes."

"Have you downloaded the harmonic to the Invasion force?"

"No there wasn't time we were just about to put it on the network…"

"Where is the original harmonic filed?"

The doctor placed a hand on the computer beside him.

"Were any copies made?"

The man shook his head. His face had grown ashen with fear.

"Good. Now please turn around."

"Please…don't…for the love of God I haven't done…"

Riley coiled his flesh and blood arm around the man's neck and squeezed. He counted to three when he felt his knees weaken and gently set him on the floor. He would regain consciousness in about fifteen minutes and unlike the other two he would probably go through the whole experience without losing control of his sphincters.

He disconnected the Disruptor, it was primed with Giles harmonic but its fuel cells were empty. Riley quickly searched through the lab until he found what he was looking for. It was a transfer cable with terminals that would allow him to attach the weapon to his own plutonium power source.

He hefted the weapon then raised his metal fist and brought it down hard on the computer the doctor had indicated. It flew apart spraying the soldier with sparks. Destroying the master copy of Giles blood harmonic before the ground and air divisions could download it would definitely stop Markwell in his tracks. More blood would have to be drawn from the Watcher before he could arm his invasion force and if Riley knew the Giles the way he thought he did then getting that blood would be easier said than done.

Riley left the laboratory. There was no going back for him now. All the Initiative had to offer him was a court martial quickly followed by the death sentence. He wasn't ready to go out yet. Soon, but not quite yet.

He had things to do. Most importantly he had to get to the rift before Markwell discovered his treachery and that was going to be difficult because the first thing he had to do was rescue someone he really did not like.

*** ***

Farness escorted Giles down a metal ladder that led down to the ground floor of the enormous underground warehouse. He slipped a rucksack off his shoulders and opened it. Everything Giles had requested was inside it.

Farwell stepped back while Giles arranged the paraphernalia according to the spells he was about to cast. The scientist had requested that Giles specify the precise spells he would require and now Giles understood why. The books from which they came must have been digitized because the words to the incantations were printed on paper.

Willow had once suggested that he do the same with his own collection. He was glad he hadn't. It just did not feel right reading Sumerian that hadn't been written in human blood.

They were below the rift now. Giles tried to forget that it was there. This was going to require his full attention. A lot of years had passed since he had tried a spell of this magnitude and even then he hadn't been so close to Hell nor had he been alone. The Sex Pistols had been in the charts and his hair had nearly been down to his ass when he had last attempted to incant a spell that would take him across dimensions.

"Something is wrong," said Farness. Even through the electronic earpiece Giles could hear the alarm in the man's voice.

"Something is very wrong."

The rift began to pulse at an irregular rhythm. Its spin began to slow and like a gyroscope steadily loosing momentum it began to wobble on its axis. The Tantalus had lost his grip on the rift thought Giles. His own participation would be academic if Hell came through first.

"Oh God," wailed Farness, "They're coming. They're getting through. We're going to be too late." He dropped onto his knees as the rifts wobble became more pronounced and chaotic.

It was changing size now, contracting and expanding wildly as something or someone struggled with the Tantalus to be allowed access to earth. Farness was praying feverishly and it was putting Giles off his preparations. He ran his finger over the facemask until he found the button that would switch off the speaker. He found it and was suddenly completely alone in a silent world.

The rift was out of control now, pulsing like bombs going off in a balloon. It contracted violently as if it was being sucked into a single tiny point in space and then recoiled with a flash that made Giles feel like he'd been X-rayed.

Monstrous tendrils escaped its confines and thrashed around in the huge room as something began to work itself free. Giles watched aghast as they grew in size and began to surge against walls miles apart. He tried to make out what they were composed off because they seemed to be masses of smaller bodies but he couldn't see properly.

One tendril found the balcony and swarming along it quickly discovered the door to the antechamber that Giles had changed into his ridiculous jumpsuit in. An exit seemed to be exactly what the entity had been looking for because almost immediately a tidal wave of the demonic matter crashed to the floor and coasted across to the exit where it drained into the rest of the Initiative base.

The rift steadied itself and returned to its pulsing normal state but the entity still had access to earth and was pouring more of itself into the base at a staggering rate. There was nothing more that Giles could do now. He would go into the rift and try and aid the Tantalus. If he succeeded he succeeded, if he failed he failed. It was in the hands of the Fates now. With that unreassuring thought he began the spell.


	19. Chapter 19

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Seven**

Buffy clutched her head and screamed. Anya was caught completely off guard. One moment they had been chatting the next Buffy was spasaming on the ground. Anya dropped the Multi-melter and went to her friend's side. Was this an epileptic seizure? What was she supposed to do? What happened if Buffy choked on her tongue? There was no way she wanted to risk having her fingers bitten off.

As suddenly as it had occurred the fit passed. Buffy whispered something. Anya bent closer.

"What was that? What did you say?"

"Duck." Said Buffy. Anya hit the deck.

A presence of unimaginable malevolence passed through them and Anya relived every moment of pain and anguish she had ever experienced in an instant. Screaming just didn't make her feel any better at all.

As it surged through the holding center the glass protective panes to every cell exploded outwards. They were still ten meters from the door.

Buffy was on her feet first. A Pnarwaidh flew at her and she cut it in two with a backhand that would have made Dennis Williams weep for joy. Anya was close behind the Slayer; she scrambled for her weapon narrowly avoiding another attacking demon. Its jaws snapped shut on thin air with a sound like a bear trap. It swiveled for another bite but Buffy brought the axe down on its head with all the force she could muster. Its blade bounced off the floor tiles.

Anya looked up the corridor and wished she hadn't bothered. It was swarming with chattering level ten hostiles. She got her hand around the Multi-melters grip, aimed it forwards and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuucckkkkkk."

Buffy was surrounded by Pnarwaidh but she seemed to be coping. They were chomping and biting at her but her axe was faster than their minds and jets of brown liquid followed the trail of its blade. Anya examined the weapon. It was chrome, it had a trigger and there was an end that bad things came out of. Why wasn't it working? Another Pnarwaidh came at her and she dived into one of the holding cells. She had cornered herself but she had nowhere else to go. There was an almost invisible seam running in a square on the top of the weapon. The Pnarwaidh hopped in a circle trying to position itself for another attack. Its jaws worked involuntarily as it either savored what it was about to eat or thought it already was eating.

Anya pressed down on the square. One end rose gracefully out of the body of the gun. It had a small computer screen. Anya touched it and a series of small green bars stacked themselves one on top of the other. The Multi-melter began to hum.

The Pnarwaidh leapt into the air propelled by its infeasibly short legs and its mouth gaped open, its teeth separating as if spring loaded.

Anya pointed the weapon at it and squeezed the trigger. This time the result was far more impressive. A thick jet of ionic plasma heated to one half the surface temperature of the sun struck the demon dead on and vaporized the top half of its body. The bottom half hit her hard in the leg and the limb went numb. She hobbled forwards and leaned out of the holding cell. The Pnarwaidh had organized themselves and were massing on the Slayer who unbelievably was still swinging the axe faster then they could replace the corpses. Buffy made eye contact with Anya and the message that she couldn't keep this up indefinitely was communicated.

Anya stepped out into the corridor and turned her back on the Slayer. Holding the Multi-melter parallel with the floor she squeezed the trigger. The plasma weapon cut a swathe through the Pnarwaidh. Bodies burst like blisters filling the air with intestines and gore. She fired again and again. The heat from the weapon was incredible and she could feel her body break out in a fierce sweat as the holding center caught fire. She swept it from side to side decimating their numbers. Unsure what to do with this strange phenomenon the Pnarwaidh did what came naturally and tried to bite the plasma stream. Those that were fast enough didn't live long enough to regret it.

"Anya."

Anya turned. Buffy was leaning in the doorway holding it open for her.

"Come on."

Anya fired one last blast and sprinted for the door. She ran past Buffy and into the L shaped room. Buffy followed her and slammed the doors shut. Almost immediately the Pnarwaidh started attacking it. Buffy dropped the axe and put her shoulder to it.

"I can't hold them forever. Run for it. Surrender to Riley if you can. I'm so sorry."

Anya checked the small computer screen. Most of the bars had turned red but two were still green. She hoped it would be enough for what she had in mind.

"I have an idea."

She ran down the room and kicked the surgery room open. Then she went to the door that led back out into the hallway they had originally entered through. She checked the angle. It was good.

"Buffy when I say let go and get past me fast."

"Anya…"

"Just do it."

Buffy nodded and gore dripped from her face. The Pnarwaidh were incredibly strong and after the intense fight she had little strength remaining. She was out of ideas and places to run.

"On three." shouted Anya, "One…"

"…twothree…" and Buffy let go off the doors and ran towards Anya. The Pnarwaidh spilled from the holding center. Buffy slipped in demon juice but quickly righted herself and barreled towards Anya. The Pnarwaidh were right behind her snapping at her heels but the Slayer was faster. She dived past Anya and sprawled out into the hall hitting the door to the stairwell.

Anya lowered the Multi-melter, took aim at the gas cylinders chained to the wall of the surgery and fired. The plasma gushed over them like lava as Anya kept the trigger depressed. A Pnarwaidh hit her just as the final green bar went red.

*** ***

Riley ran down the corridor at a respectable pace. He didn't want to arouse attention but he still had a long way to go. Suddenly alarms went off in the silicone and wires side of his head. A virtual representation of the base appeared behind his eyes. Something was coming. The sensors were unable to give him any clearer idea of what it was. They were simply registering a threat, a monstrous threat approaching fast.

Something small moved at the end of the corridor. Riley focused in with his bionic eye and shook his head at what he saw. It couldn't be.

Another quickly joined it and then two more appeared. Riley was about to perform a systems check for glitches when from around the corner a wave of flesh slapped against the wall and swelled towards him. It roared down the corridor. There was no time to plug in the disruptor. Thinking quickly he looked about. Three meters away was a grill to the air circulation and filtration system. He put one leather clad steel foot to it and it folded in half. Ripping it off completely he crouched down and pushed his heavy body into the shaft.

The wave swept past him. He had the distinct feeling that part of it stopped to observe him before moving on as if he didn't interest it.

Whatever. He had a job to do. It wasn't bothering him so he would return the favor. With a thought the map of the air tunnels was added to that of the base. He chose his destination and the shortest route appeared. It wasn't good; he felt that he was going to be too late. Finn started to crawl.


	20. Chapter 20

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Eight**

The gas cylinders exploded. They were full of oxygen and the force of the detonation was felt at the surface of the base. An enormous fireball spread through the holding center destroying the Pnarwaidh, even ones that had been too scared by the presence of the Slayer to leave their cells.

The hostile that had planned to sink its teeth into Anya was killed instantly. It took the explosion side on and was pancaked against the wall above Buffy. Anya was knocked sideways by its attack but the force of the explosion was so great that it still caught her and drove her against the same wall. Her head hit the brickwork at a nauseating velocity quickly followed by the rest of her body. Buffy managed to catch her before she hit the floor but it was clear that she was too late to do any good.

Buffy held Anya in her arms and begged her to live. Anya opened one eye for one was all she had remaining.

"Somebody help me. I need a doctor. Please somebody help me."

Anya tried to say something.

"Don't talk Anya. You're going to be ok. I promised and you will. It's all going to be ok."

Yellow cerebral fluid ran out of Anya's right ear and over Buffy's hand.

"Oh dear God someone help us." Tears were streaming down Buffy's face.

Anya reached up towards and then past Buffy. She tried to speak again. Buffy smoothed her hair and shushed her.

"A baby," said Anya, "Look a baby. Xander and I were going to have lots of babies."

"You still will. Fight Anya. Oh God oh God oh God I'm so sorry." At that moment in time Buffy Summers hated herself more than at any other time in her life. This was her fault. She was nursing a dying friend; mortally wounded trying to protect her worthless self and here was Buffy with hardly a scratch.

A baby crawled past Buffy, then stopped and looked at her with the black eyes of a shark.

Buffy stared at it. She wiped tears from her eyes and stared some more.

"A little baby," said Anya. She held out her arms and cooed at it. Another joined the first. It casually crawled close and stared at Buffy with the same dead eyes.

"What. The. Hell?" said Buffy.

Something hit her on the back and washed all over her. She grabbed hold of Anya and held her tight to her body. They were both carried along before Buffy could get her head out to see what was happening. Little hands grabbed and tore at her as a sea of little naked dead eyed babies swarmed all around them. She began to feel a pull. The wave of flesh wanted to take them back the way they had come. Buffy tried to resist them but there were too many and gradually she was moved against her will. Quickly her energy reserves were depleted and she stopped fighting. She pulled Anya close and relaxed waiting to see what was going to happen next.

The spawn of Ishosantos carried her like a piece of flotsam past the holding center, deeper into the Initiative base and straight down into Hell.

*** ***

Giles realized that he had a tendency to pick the most inopportune times to doubt his own sanity. Here he was, crouching under the most profound threat humanity had faced in thirty millennia attempting to perform a spell that was beyond his meager abilities while at the same time interweaving it with a complicated transportation spell.

There was no way he was ever going to be able to pull it off. Perhaps if the rift would stay stable for two minutes he might make a go of it but no. The bleeding thing wouldn't stay still for a second.

The entity that had come through had started to retreat. Either Riley's men had found a way to fight it off or it had found what it was looking for and was heading home. Giles doubted that it was the former. He just didn't get that lucky.

It was retracting at a tremendous speed, sucking its extensions back into Hell. Giles tried to concentrate on the spells. On the ground before him the magic circle was growing in intensity. He was nearly finished. A few more verses and he would find out whether the Fates had success or failure in mind for him.

Something made him raise his head. His mouth was still reciting the words but for some reason he knew his attention was required elsewhere.

The entity had almost completely returned to Hell. A final tendril extracted itself from the antechamber and slithered back across the balcony. There was something inside it. He strained to make it out. A hand poked out of the convulsing mass. Then a head bobbed up for a second and flicked a mane of blonde hair about it.

Buffy.

His young charge struggled to the surface and Giles could see another body under her own.

It was Buffy.

At that moment Buffy saw her Watcher. His heart broke as he saw her mouth his name. There was a look of sheer terror on her face. Giles wanted to stop and help her but the spell was nearing completion and had taken on a life of its own. He was nothing more than a conduit for the energies he was channeling.

Buffy was shouting something at him but with the facemask on he had no idea what it might be and then she was shooting up into the rift and was gone. Swallowed by Hell.

Both spells came to a conclusion at the same time, exactly how he had planned it. He felt the dimensional spell begin to take effect and reached for the Iban fertility statue. He had planned to close the rift and thereby screw Farness' and the general's plans but as he threw the statue into the circle, an action which completed the transportation spell, he knew that he was going to have to change those plans. Buffy was in Hell. He would have to keep the rift open long enough for her to escape or else she would be trapped there. He hoped that the transportation spell had worked as well as the dimensional one or else he and the Tantalus as well as the earth were royally buggered. With that final thought Giles was pulled into the rift.

*** ***

General Markwell cupped one of Miss Jackenzies' warm breasts and nuzzled it hungrily. Nothing turned him on more than the smell of gun oil on a woman. She put one hand to the back of his head and pressed his face against her harder. Caught up in the passion the general grabbed her buttocks and lifted her off the ground pushing her against the table. She wrapped her chocolate legs around him and squeezed the erection pounding in his slacks. He grunted and tried to get both her nipples in his mouth at the one time. Then for no reason he was falling forwards. He hit his pecker on the edge of the table and curled up on the floor in agony. He didn't understand what had happened. One moment he had been about to get laid and the next…denied. She just seemed to have disappeared into thin air.


	21. Chapter 21

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Nine**

Riley gave the metal grill before him a hard shove and it sprang loose from its housings and clattered noisily to the floor. He had no time for subtlety and patience any more. He could hardly believe what he had seen in the corridor behind, if it was not for his remaining real eye he would have sworn it was some hallucination brought on by his newly incorporated hardware. Waves of babies were not the norm in most of the bases he had been stationed in.

He slid his awkward frame forwards and simply let gravity do the rest. The sound of him landing disturbed several demons in holding cells waiting to go onto the alley. A hairy simian creature with elongated arms shrieked and battered the Plexiglas divider. It had obviously seen hostiles come off the range and knew what was ahead of it. In the adjoining cell a Kodo-Gundoth sat cross-legged on the floor. It raised two heavy eyelids and its yellow spines bristled slightly but other than that it showed no reaction to Riley's sudden appearance. They were intelligent animals with complicated speech patterns and a fighting style that Riley had studied and found to be totally unique. He stared at the striped, muscular demon. He might have a use for it.

But first he had something else to do. The room was filthy; the normal standards of hygiene that applied to the rest of the base did not apply to these holding cells. These were only for moribund hostiles. Food, bedding and excrement littered the floor. In one corner lay Spikes crumpled black coat.

Which one had it been? Second from the left. Because Riley was now behind the gun range that meant Spike was in the fourth from the right alley. There were five levers on the wall opposite the holding cells. He pulled the right one and a section of the wall swiveled round one hundred and eighty degrees.

Riley had seen some horrific injuries in his time as a soldier. Among the worst had been the photos of himself after he had come back from the jungle. This was quite possibly worse. He undid Spike's restraints and literally scooped his destroyed body into his arms. It felt as if limbs were threatening to fall off, as if only the material of his clothes was holding him together. He had intended setting the vampire on one of the gurneys in the room. Instead he laid Spike down on the floor like a boneless chicken.

Riley had never liked Spike. But he had fought beside him on occasion and he knew how he had felt about Buffy while Riley had been with her. It was tough to look at anyone who had gone through the amount of pain Spike had been put through and not be moved. That was where training came into the equation. It allowed you to do what had to be done. He paused, Buffy. It had been a long time since he had thought that name and not felt pain. It had been a long time since he had thought about that name period. How had she managed to find her Watcher? It had been his idea to tap Rupert Giles for his blood but it had been Markwell's idea to fill him full of crap about helping them to close the rift. 'Keep 'em guessing' seemed to be the general's creed when it came to dealings with others. Well two can play at that game thought the commander.

"Spike? Can you hear me Spike?"

Riley reached into his combats pockets and took out the four vials of biotylinated plasma. He pried the vampire's mouth open and poured the concentrated blood down its throat. Spike couldn't be dead. As far as Riley knew there were only four ways to destroy a vampire. Bullets would only do the job if they tore the head off. Although there was one enormous hole in Spike's throat his neck looked intact. Therefore Spike was alive, or undead or whatever, just in deep traumatic shock.

Instinctually Spike's esophagus accepted the blood and he swallowed it. Riley tore the cap of another vial and poured more blood down his throat. From the corner of his eye he saw the Kodo-Gundoth stand up and watch him.

Spike coughed slightly and his lips moved.

"Lie still," ordered Riley though he was unsure whether Spike could hear him. He reached into a pouch on his belt and removed a large roll of Duct tape. He started with Spikes feet and slowly worked his way up Spikes body tearing away material and taping together the worst injuries. Spikes right knee took longer than almost the rest of his body and by the time Riley was finished bandaging Spike the whole roll of tape plus another vial of the blood were exhausted.

The vampire moved his head and tried to say something. Riley bent closer to hear what he was saying but gave up when with a flutter the vampire went back to his unconscious state. Riley walked over to the Kodo-Gundoth's cell.

"Do you want to live?"

The demon hissed at him.

"Do you want to live or would you rather die?"

"Yawlasss lives." It had a sibilant voice that struggled with the English like a snake trying to recite Shakespeare.

"For the moment. Do as I say and you will live, stay and you will die."

"Do for liiivesss?"

"That's better. I need you to look after the vampire. We are going to find his friend, when we do, follow her. She is your only way out of this alive."

"Ssslayyerrr."

"That's right, the Slayer. Take her friend to her and she will get you all out alive. Every other way you die." The Kodo called Yawlass was not stupid like the shrieking creature in the next cell. It nodded its head then joined its fists together.

"Yawlasss liiivesss."

"Good." Riley activated the glass doors and the demon stepped out into the room. It stretched and bared its teeth in pleasure at being released.

"May-bee Yawlasss keel u-man. Free. Noh Ssslayyerrr."

Riley gripped the neck of his tight jumper with both hands and pulled the material apart. It tore like tissue paper to expose a body of plastisteel. Other than his left shoulder, arm and side of his face Riley's body was all metal. Ugly thick staples linked the artificial to the biological.

"Try me."

The demon adopted a subservient posture and groveled at Riley's feet. He turned his back on it and went back to Spike. His eyes were stilled closed. He wished that vampires had a pulse. He had no way of telling how he was doing.

"Come here." He said to the prostrate Kodo. "Carry him."

The demon did exactly what he was told to do and slung Spike over his shoulder with one fluid motion. It wasn't gentle but Riley wasn't sure it mattered now anyway. He went to the one door that led out of the room and opened it. He had had enough of creeping around. He would try and get Spike to Buffy. He was sure that the Slayer would head directly for her Watcher, she had the unerring ability to be exactly where she was needed and that suited him fine. He was on his way to the rift anyway, to close it from the inside and take as many of whatever was on the other side with him as he did so. As he plugged the disruptor into his plutonium power source and drew his pistol he smiled. It would allow him to kill two birds with one stone. He draped Spikes coat over his shoulders, hiding the weapons and left the holding room followed by Yawlass and the vampire. He didn't notice that Spike's coat was heavier than it had any right to be.

*** ***

"What the fuck is going on down there?" shrieked the general down the line. Galloway cringed on the other end. Markwell had wired the head of division one expecting to speak to Finn. The second Galloway had answered he had known that something was wrong.

"Where is Finn now?"

"We have no idea sir. He was last seen on the way to the weapons lab."

"Is it possible that the intruders have eliminated him?"

"Its possible sir. Though unlikely, the intruders were last seen descending down a different drop shaft. There is something else sir. In fact several things."

Galloway could hear the general hyperventilating at the other end of the line. He took a deep breath and continued.

"One, the weapons lab was infiltrated. The disruptor is missing and the original file of the Watchers harmonic was destroyed. This occurred before the download could be preformed. All three divisions are in place though they are equipped with conventional weapons only.

Two, an explosion was detected in the search area for the intruders. No bodies other than those of our own men have as yet been found. Prior to the explosion a powerful surge of supposed electromagnetic radiation passed through the base. Fire control was decimated and our men are having problems coping with the after affects of the explosion. We may have to evacuate shaft four.

Three…"

"There are three?"

"There are four sir. Three, the Tantalus temporarily lost control of the rift and an entity of unknown taxonomy compromised base security for approximately fifteen minutes. It has since withdrawn back into the rift though what it achieved in that time is as yet unknown.

And four, the Watcher has disappeared. Farwell says he saw the English man enter the rift though the professor witnessed the entity exiting the rift and is currently in a state of shock. That's it sir."

And five, added the general to himself, Miss tits and ass had disappeared. Just exactly how many double crosses were occurring here at the one time? The general thought quickly, it was what he was paid to do, and barked out a new range of orders.

"Abandon efforts to save shaft four. Form the men into an infantry division that will follow divisions one and three in. Get Farness to his lab and get him to generate a new harmonic from the Watchers blood. Fill him with whatever drugs it takes but get it done."

"Sir as far as I understand only a small amount was taken and it has all been consumed. No new harmonic can be generated without new blood."

"Fuck! Finn that bastard, he has the disruptor. He's taking what happened to his girlfriend Egg personally. We have to find him; he has the last surviving copy in that weapon. He can't be allowed to pass through the rift. Do you understand Galloway?"

"Yes sir."

"Stand by, I'll be there in ten."

"Sir? Current predictions estimate that taking the rifts recent oscillations into account the Tantalus will lose control again within the next forty minutes. What if we don't have Finn or the disruptor by that time?"

"Then we do it the old fashioned way son. We don't shoot until we see the red of their eyes."


	22. Chapter 22

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Ten**

Giles came to a sudden halt in a completely white environment. There was no horizon and no features of any sort. He could have been blind other than the fact that it was totally white and not dark. So this is what it felt like to straddle dimensions he thought and laughed slightly. He felt giddy and euphoric.

In the distance a small speck of darkness appeared. Slowly he realized that it was coming towards him. He thought about running, but that was too earthy a concept for this place. It would be like trying to escape from the palm of the Buddha's hands yet never being able to pass the great pillars of her fingers. With nowhere to conceal himself Giles waited for the speck to reveal what it was. Perhaps he was not yet in the rift he thought. Perhaps he was actually moving towards the spot and that was the true opening to the dimensions. His human mind could not process the information it was receiving. He decided to wait and see what happened.

Gradually and with deep laconic movements the dark spot approached him.

"Hello." Said Giles to the enormous orange squid when it finally came close enough. He couldn't think of anything else to say. The gargantuan creature regarded him with flat eyes more alien than an immortal soul.

"I think they are angels," said a small voice behind him.

Giles turned and looked at a small blonde haired boy dressed in white sheets playing with a glowing sphere.

"Ah," said Giles, "Ethan. How have you been?"

*** ***

Spike regained consciousness with the sudden violence of a heart attack. He thrashed on the Kodo's shoulder and even the demons abnormal strength could not restrain him. He hit the tiles hard and spasmed. His back arched and he let out a scream that Riley felt was one of the most chilling things he had ever heard. The Kodo backed away frightened by the pain and agony that scream represented.

Riley was on him in a second.

"Spike you have to shut up."

"Oh that bastard. That vicious bastard."

"Spike! We are not in a safe place. You have to shut up."

"I thought…I thought I'd met some vicious animals but that psycho takes the biscuit."

Riley hauled the vampire into a sitting position.

"Markwell has a bit of a thing for hostiles."

"Nah. Not him. The woman, I really thought she wasn't going to stop until I was dead. She just kept shooting and shooting…where are we?"

"At the bottom of drop shaft one."

"Can't say as I'm really surprised to see you here soldier boy. Place smelt of you lot the second I went through that wall. Jesus what happened to your face?"

"If you're very lucky Spike I'll be dead before I have a chance to tell you. Can you stand up?"

Spike tried but sagged back shaking his head. Riley indicated to the Kodo demon to assist Spike.

"You bastard. That's my bloody coat you've got on."

Riley whipped off the coat and threw it at Spike. It fell short of its target.

"Jesus Arnie. You really have been in the wars. Got your own action figure yet?"

"Stay here and keep quiet." Said Finn shouldering the disruptor and changing the pistol to his flesh hand, "I'll be back."

*** ***

"You look a bit different from the last time I saw you Ethan."

"I'm very tired Giles. And I'm bored of this game."

Giles hunkered down until he was on an eyelevel with Ethan.

"What game are you playing?"

"I have to keep the ball from touching the ground. I want to do some tricks. I'm great at toe tapping and bouncing it on my head but I'm scared what might happen if I drop it. I'm sure I could do loads but I'm scared."

"I know you could too. It was the only physically demanding thing I think I ever saw you do."

Giles remembered back to their teenage years and the skinny young man who could keep a soccer ball bouncing about his body for days. Giles had always been envious of that skill. Giles more than made up for it by actually being able to play soccer on the field.

As soon as it came to actually kicking the ball rather than his usual balancing act Ethan's abilities seemed to evaporate. He was one of the greatest sorcerers Giles had ever met. That awareness of balance was innate in Ethan. Giles, being the child of a Watcher had some magical ability and had been introduced to that world at an early age. Ethan though was a natural. Together they had made a lethal combination.

"I was good at it." Said Ethan talking of his ball control skills.

"You still are. Are the angels making you play the game?"

"No. They just want to see what happens. The people in the ball are making me play."

"What are they saying?"

Ethan shook his head. "Different things. Some times they want me to break it, other times they want me to protect it and sometimes they just want me to play with it to see what might happen. Do you have ice-cream?"

"I'm sorry," said Giles and shook his head.

"It's alright, its nice to have someone to talk to. Do you want to play with my ball for a while?"

"No thank you." Giles looked at the offered glowing light and realized that what in Ethan's hands might be a ball would probably be something much different in his hands.

"You know," said Giles, "What do you say to us all playing a game?"

"The angel won't play. I already asked. He just swims about looking stupid."

"I think someone else you know may be joining us. The three of us could play then eh, Ethan. It would be just like the old days."

"I don't care." Snapped Ethan with sudden childish temper. "I don't care. I'm bored. Bored, bored, bored."

Giles prepared himself to catch the rift, for all the good it would do, if Ethan decided to complete his tantrum by throwing it to the ground. Ethan looked slightly younger than he had been when Giles had first seen him. He was getting more tired. The Tantalus would eventually fall apart, either through some terrible twos pique of anger or when Ethan became so tired he reverted to an infantile state and no longer possessed the coordination and strength to hold the ball.

The squid changed color, from orange to an anxious purple. Something appeared in the air before them. A little trickle of dots that steadily extended until it looked like a millipede.

"Do you think they will have ice-cream?"

"I doubt it." Said Giles then hurriedly added, "but you never know." When a dark expression crossed the child's face.

The millipede extended, growing in all dimensions of shape. It was a person caught in a slow exposure photograph as they went through their lives. Starting out small and young, growing to maturity and then the beginning of the slow decline through old age to death. Jackie's whole life snapped together in a nanosecond and she was unceremoniously dumped beside Ethan. Giles could have refined the transportation spell to smooth her journey if he had wanted, but he had had too much on his mind at the time it was being cast and thought it might teach her a lesson. It was a dirty trick she had played on him. He had really thought she was dead, murdered by the Initiative to ensure his cooperation. However when he had washed his face in the water fountain after the briefing and his hand had turned red he had begun to suspect something was afoot. They had used red dye of some sort to try and fool him. As if a Watcher to the Vampire Slayer would not recognize false blood when he saw it.

"Jazz." Cried the boy. "I'm so glad to see you."

"Ethan? Is that you?" Jackie wrapped her arms around him but it wasn't a hug a grown woman normally gives a child. It was the hold of a woman beside herself with joy to see the man she loves alive and well.

"Oh Ethan I'm so sorry. I had to do terrible things, I'm so sorry."

Giles understood a lot in that moment. He stood up and stared down at them.

"Jackie," he said quietly. "We have work to do."

She stared up at him and wiped away a tear.

"I'm so sorry Rupert. It wasn't my idea. It was that psycho Galloway's. You've no idea what he is like. He and Markwell hate everything that is not pure human. They needed your blood for their weapon and the more I understood about their plan to invade Hell the more I thought they were right. When they made Ethan form the rift I knew that they considered him to be no different to the monsters. They would only keep him alive as long as he was useful. You were the only person I could think of who I could trust. I couldn't let Ethan die. Please forgive me."

Giles bit his tongue. He wanted to say that she hadn't trusted him, that she had used him, but what would be achieved by personal recriminations now?

"We have more important things to deal with now Jackie. Ethan would you like to play that game I talked about?"

"Yeah. Can Jazz play?"

"It wouldn't be the same without her," said Giles.

"The Scourges of Albion reunited," said Jazz as they joined hands.

"Three of the five of us anyway." Said Ripper.

"Its more than enough old chap," said Ethan in an adult voice. Giles looked at him and found himself staring at the man he had last seen being manhandled by the Initiative out of a Sunnydale motel. A big smile creased Giles face. He hated the trickster bastard but Ethan was the closest thing he had to a best friend.

*** ***

General Markwell exited the express elevator in Drop shaft one and marched out into the hall. He was dressed in full body armor, was armed to the teeth, high on amphetamines and prepared to give Hell a taste of their own medicine. If they could get the harmonic downloaded to the anti personnel disruptors all the tanks and choppers were carrying then they would win. He had no doubt. If they had to go in with traditional weapons then so be it. He would gladly lead the charge in his own personal tank. The one he called 'Tallulah' after an ex wife. Tallulah had two less crewmen than other tanks in the division and a large proportion of her rear was made up of nuclear warheads, very unlike the real Tallulah whose rear had mostly consisted of donuts. If he couldn't kill Hell then he was definitely going to give them something to think about.

Something cold pressed against his temple and clicked. Butch Markwell stopped.

"Finn. You better just kill me now and get it over with."

"In good time general. Now move."


	23. Chapter 23

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Eleven**

Buffy was experiencing a rushing sensation. She could not tell how long it had been going on for but she felt no pain, no fear, no nothing. It was almost a pleasant sensation. Anya was under her. That was all she was sure off. She held the girl tighter in arms that felt as big as the orbit of Jupiter. Then it was over. She was moving no more. She became aware of darkness, of heat and of wet air that hummed with insects and insectivorous life. She slowly opened her eyes. It was not as bad as she expected. In her arms Anya moved. Buffy let go off her and for some reason was not even remotely shocked when Anya unfolded a massive pair of wings. It seemed like the most natural thing on earth; or Hell at least.


	24. Chapter 24

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Two: Secret Initiative Base

**Twelve**

The Kodo demon dumped Spike against the wall the second Riley was out of sight. Spike lay there and tried to regroup what faculties he had in working order. The flash of the muzzle and the incredible tearing pain that accompanied the sound of the bullets would be with him forever. The sensation of a thousand seamstresses tugging at his internal organs would never leave him. He would never forget the helplessness; never forget begging behind his gag for the pain to end. He had implored them to take mercy on his carcass and just stake him. But it hadn't happened. They had kept laughing and firing, as if it had been a joke; or even worse, a first date. He was still alive though. Their scents were branded on his brain and before his body was reduced to dust Spike would have his vengeance.

He tried to think about something else because the thought of killing them brought on the fury and he couldn't spare the energy to vamp out right at the moment. Riley had saved him. Spike could hardly believe it. He had seen him at the top of the alley at one point and if the soldier had joined in he would not have been surprised. But he had saved him. What was that about?

As he had led them down through the base Riley had briefed him on the rift and given him directions for getting Buffy back out to the surface. Spike couldn't remember a word he had said. He did however know up from down and if the sun had risen topside then he would sense it and be able to lead them towards it. That wasn't what was bothering him. It was the Slayer.

She had abandoned him after the car accident. That wasn't too surprising, he would probably have done the same to her under the circumstances. He just couldn't sense her. Perhaps he had taken too much of a beating and was seriously below power. But he was a vampire and sensing the Slayer was a survival instinct amongst his kind. He just couldn't feel Buffy's presence at all. Riley had assured him that she would go straight to Giles and Spike agreed with his reasoning. If Riley then took Spike to where the Watcher was, Spike could either wait for her to show, or sense if she had already been there and track her down. Something was very wrong though; he just couldn't put his finger on it yet. Perhaps he was still too weak. He tried to stand and amazingly his knee took the weight. It hurt like crazy but the joint was slowly but surely knitting itself together.

He struggled into his coat. It felt heavier than he remembered it being. Leaning against the wall he put his hands in his pockets and fingered half a dozen grenades. It came back to him. When he had gone through the wall after the accident he had not been immediately apprehended. He had been taken down by a few guards but had managed to struggle free without any migraines because he had not intended to harm them, just nick some weaponry. He had learnt this trick when dealing with aggressive humans. Intend to do something else that had the by-product of hurting them and sometimes the chip didn't kick in. He had been cornered soon after and had tried the misdirection again but this time the chip was having none of it and had laid him out flat for the soldiers just to pick up and take home.

The blood Finn had given him had brought him back from the edge and allowed him to begin to heal himself but it was no good any more. It was artificial, it contained all the raw components but it had been manufactured in a laboratory. It stank of the Initiative and sterility. It would do him no more good. What he needed now was something with a bit more kick.

He took his cigarettes from an inside pocket and lit one. Yawlass stared hungrily at him. Spike tapped the box and offered the demon one. It nodded its head up and down as it approached him and extracted a white tip from the container. Spike flicked the Zippo and deliberately fumbled the action, dropping it to the ground. Yawlass bent down to retrieve it and Spike smiled like a bear trap. He was weak but the demon was prone and that was more important. With a phenomenal effort Spike vamped out and lunged low and hard at the creature as it stood up again. He angled his head and slid it under the demons jaw line plunging his fangs into its throat. They slid into its flesh with a beautiful, lubricated sensation and immediately its blood began to flow into Spikes mouth. It tasted rank but even urine is palatable when you are dying of thirst.

It beat his back but a vampire is never stronger than when it is feeding. Spike pounded the Kodo against the wall using violence to deny its right to life. The prey grew weaker as Spike grew stronger, sucking the life out of him and pressing against its abdomen in an effort to push more blood towards its neck. Spike was unable to stop himself thrashing his head and he tore a mouthful of flesh from its throat before sinking his fangs back in for more. He was completely lost in the ecstasy of taking a life. The demon had done nothing wrong, in fact it had helped him and what he was doing was evil and Spike loved every second of it's death.

*** ***

Riley rounded the corner with Markwell in an arm lock just as Spike let the Kodo's corpse fall to the ground. The vampire tilted back his head and laughed out loud.

"For crying out loud Spike. I had a use for him."

Spike whirled round and spread his arms, advertising his presence for all to see. He felt magnificent.

"Shouldn't have left him with the Big Bad then should you Peaches."

It was all the distraction Markwell needed. Arm locks were never easy to counter but he didn't need to. He whipped a tazer from his belt and reaching back over his shoulder pressed it against Riley's face and gave the cyborg all the voltage it had. Riley stiffened and toppled backwards like a felled tree with blue electricity coursing over his body. Spike caught his gun before it had completed one revolution and pressed it against Markwell's forehead. Butch had not allowed his years behind a desk to turn him into a slouch though. He was out of Riley's grip in an instant and backed against a wall raising the tazer to Spikes chest.

"I know you," he said, "You're fitted with a restraining chip. You can't hurt me."

Spike growled and pressed the gun barrel harder against him, the tazer would take a moment to recharge and he had to think fast. He owed this bastard a world of pain.

"Not directly, no." he agreed, "but I'm betting on the ricochet being a killer."

He slid the gun up Markwell's head and pointed it down the back of the general's skull.

"I'm just going to shoot the wall and see."

Spike squeezed the trigger. Markwell's face evaporated as the bullet bounced off the wall and tumbled between his eyes at forty meters a second. Spike's chip had no problem with him being violent towards human corpses and Spike emptied the rest of the magazine into the general making sure to leave the last bullet for his groin.

"Spike," said Riley getting to his feet, "You're an idiot. A nasty, vicious killer of an idiot but an idiot none the less."

"He had it coming."

"That's as maybe but how do you suggest we get past the assembled divisions and to the rift without the general as a hostage."

Spike shrugged and tossed the firearm aside.

"Planning's not really my thing. I'm more of a doing type of guy. How about we throw a load of grenades at them and make a run for the rift."

Spike took a few of the grenades from one pocket and showed them to Riley raising his eyebrows a few times.

"You're not killing any of my men Spike."

"Alright. Playboys then or something. Come on. Times a wasting."

Riley thought for a second.

"I think you may be onto something with the grenades."

*** ***

Commander Finn marched bare-chested between the assembled tanks of Division one. He stopped the first grunt he met.

"Where are your smoke grenades?" he asked.

"Sir?"

"I need smoke grenades son. Where are they on your tank?"

"Sir I think Captain Galloway is looking for you."

I'm sure he is thought Riley. He reached past the private and ripped a box from the back of the tank. It contained two dozen smokers. His luck was in. He began to pull pins and throw them in all directions. Spike slipped from the shadows under the tank and moved beside him. Thick clouds of choking green gas began to fill the enormous holding room that led onto the floor the rift was on.

"This going to be a problem for you?"

"Don't breathe mate."

Riley nodded and began to run between the tanks still lobbing grenades.

At the front of the room were a series of cantilevered steel screens that would roll up to allow the divisions access to the rift. Riley headed for the wall between two of the screens. He distinctly heard Galloway's voice scream that he had to be stopped before he reached the rift and threw the last grenade in his direction. He dropped the box and lowering his metal shoulder hit the wall like a locomotive. Spike was through the opening before the whole of Riley's shadow was. Spike screamed. It was the brightest light he had seen since he had been turned into a vampire and for a second he thought Riley had tricked him and led him out into the sun.

The screen doors began to roll up and Riley hauled Spike to his feet and the two began to run.

"Where's the bloody Watcher? I don't see the Slayer."

Riley ignored him and kept moving. He slid the disruptor from his shoulder and took aim on the rift. The gates were up high enough for infantry to squeeze beneath and bullets began to scream through the air around them. Riley stopped under the rift.

"Spike. Give me a leg up."

"What?"

"Give me a leg up. I have to get into the rift."

"What about me?"

"Get Buffy's scent and follow it. Try and escape if you can. Now give me a boost I'm going to close it from inside."

"You bastard. That's what you needed that brute demon for, to chuck you into the air. Well fuck off. I'm not doing it."

Riley pointed the disruptor right at his face. It hummed.

"This will make Markwell's bullets feel like a walk in the park. Now help me up."

Spike reached into his pocket and slid a finger into the ring of one of the grenades.

"Not a chance. You're on your own."

The vampire began to back off.

The infantry had crept closer and a bullet caught Spike in the arm ripping his hand out of his pocket.

"The fate of humanity rests on the next few seconds Spike! I'm the only one that can save us."

"Sorry mate. Seem to have a few problems of my own."

Spike held up his hand to show Riley the extracted grenade pin still around his finger.

The two shared a look.

Riley sagged.

"Spike. Excuse my French but you are definitely the stupidest son of a bitch I have ever met in my life."

Spike was frantically struggling to get his coat off.

Riley shielded the flesh side of his body from Spike and closed his eyes. He hoped the detonation would be strong enough to throw him into the rift otherwise it was all over and Hell had won.

He heard Spike say, "Bloody well got it" and then the grenades went off in quick succession.


	25. Chapter 25

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three

"Well you want to go out, Cause its raining and blowing.

But you can't go out, Cause your roots are showing.

Dye them black. Black Number One"

Black No.1

**Type O Negative**

Prologue: London 1976

The house was in a run down area of Spittalfields. It was weevil ridden and damp but it fitted their purposes beautifully. The houses on either side were abandoned and this allowed Chris and Baz to jam whenever they pleased. Lemmy Kilminster, bassist for the psychedelic band Hawkwind was a regular in the Drunken Duck just two streets up and could always be relied upon to have a few groupies tagging along with him who would invariably be carrying killer weed. Mama LaForce, London's preeminent witchdoctor and Jazz's great aunt lived just ten minutes away on the tube. It was perfectly located, at the center of the web.

Giles favorite shop, Baba Yaga's apothecary, a music and magic shop which was also a cover for the local pirate radio station, SNOG AM was only a few minutes walk downhill. It looked across at Sir Christopher Wren's most baroque construction, Gotterstun Spire; the haunted church in which Sir William Withey Gull was buried. Freemason and surgeon to the Royal family during the nineteenth century, Gull was the man most likely to have carried out the series of murders attributed to Jack the Ripper. When leaving the shop Giles could never resist the temptation to step within the churches cold and draughty interior and simply breathe in the mystery.

He loved Spittalfields; it was London in its purest form. It was both frightening and violent and yet homely and terribly, terribly English. Just not the sort of England foreigners would immediately think of. This was the England of myth and legend, a place where the past and present shared the same space without disagreement. Heroin addicts sprawled against statues of Bodicea the Celtic warrior queen as well as statues of Jesus on the crucifix. But the Christhead had little influence here. The raw magic of the ancient island of Albion permeated this part of London much like its famed fog. Its choking fingers coiled around the buildings like the World Dragon that Merlin had once tricked into imbuing Excalibur with its power. Pubs in this part of London had strange evocative names such as 'Apollo's Harp' and 'The Worms breath'. Stray dogs ran from butchers shops with chains of sausages in their mouths as if in a child's storybook and large, homeless men who seemed to have antlers growing form their heads could be seen in fog shrouded alleys, staring sadly at walls, as if remembering a different, simpler time.

Roaming the streets with a joint between his lips Giles was almost able to feel the presence of the fleeing Atlanteans who had settled here and called the new land Lyonesse. This was his home, he wanted to die here. Be buried beside Gull and have ghosts visit his grave.

*** ***

"Wah-Hey! Ripper is home."

"What you get us man?"

Giles swept his long hair from his forehead and tossed it back out of his eyes. He opened a shopping bag and peered inside it.

"Lobster thermidore epiverts marinated in Buckfast and served in a white wine sauce garnished with Swedish truffles so fresh they still have pig snot on them with a delicate red Merlot to accompany said feast."

Chris and Baz looked at each other.

"What you really get us man?" said Baz.

"Did you get baked beans?" chanced Chris.

"Sorry," said Giles, "No beans. Problem at the Heinz factory."

Giles crossed the room in front of them and entered the kitchen. Calling this room a kitchen was a joke. It was whiter than other rooms in the house and had a sink that worked but using that classification it could just have easily been a bathroom. In fact that may have been closer to the mark. Giles set the shopping bag on a stable part of a counter and took out a loaf of sliced white bread, some Lincoln bangers and two jumbo tins of Heinz baked beans. He stepped back into the main room with the tins of baked beans held aloft and was greeted with two 'Wah-Heys' and four fists punched into the air. His stoner housemates were always easily pleased.

He went back into the kitchen and after arranging as many slices of bread as he could around the bangers under the grill poured the beans into a large pot on the hob and added lashings of Worcester sauce. He stuffed the rubbish out the top of the kitchen window and let it settle on the rest of the accumulated debris that filled the small yard to the level of the windowsill.

He went back into the TV room and perched himself on the back of his favorite chair. Coronation Street was just starting. He watched the black and white screen for a few minutes. Baz and Chris were sharing a stringy joint.

"That Deirdre Barlow is a vixen." Said Baz around hissing tokes. "She wants me."

"She's ganky," offered Chris. "I wouldn't touch her with yours."

"I suppose you prefer that biffer Bette."

"You know I do mate."

"Ugly fat tart."

"I don't care. I'd let her do dirty things in my underpants."

"I meant you."

And so the puerile conversation continued. Hour after hour, night after night it was always the same. Giles loved it. He rarely joined in but he laughed out loud often as the two idiots verbally sparred in words of two syllables or less.

"Can I scrounge a rollie?" asked Giles during the Ad break. Chris threw him a Golden Virginia tin and Giles took it with him as he went to check on the dinner. He rolled a thin cigarette in between stirs of the beans and thought about how much his life had changed over the past six months.

This time last year he had been in the Classics library of Cambridge University pouring through Plato's 'Sophocles' as part of his love stories course when he had raised his head and looked about him as if with new eyes. He hated this life. He was bored beyond belief. He looked at all the other students, furiously scribbling in notebooks with their shoulders hunched over and their heads in books and he realized that he was different. This is not who he wanted to be. He wanted music and beer and women and noise, not this useless silence. He had shut the book with a muffled thud that had echoed throughout the musty building, allowed his chair to scrape loudly against the floor and had left without a backwards glance.

Giles had dropped out of the University shortly after his twentieth birthday and much to his parent's shock had packed a small bag and left for the bright lights of the countries capital. There, while standing on street corners throwing his long hair about in an effort to look cool he had met Kit. She had had beautiful dark hair with streaks of blue and red throughout it and the sexiest ass he had ever seen in his life. They had started sleeping together almost immediately. Punk had the center of the city in its anemic chokehold at this time and it was always easy to find a squat to doss down in and have sex.

It was around this time that Giles met Chris. He had been introduced to him one night at a party. He was a friend of one of Kit's acquaintances and Giles was told that the boy was a bit different. It had taken Giles thirty seconds to work out what it was about Chris that set him apart. He was a psychic, or as Baz insisted on pronouncing it 'physic'.

Where Chris went Baz was never far behind and the four of them started hanging about. After a few weeks the group decided to look for somewhere more permanent to live. When Giles had found the house in Spittalfields he had instantly known that it was their home. Life had then settled into a pleasant routine revolving around nights in the Duck and mornings taking turns to vomit in the bathroom. After about two months Giles relationship with Kit had begun to deteriorate. It had been based entirely on sex and Giles began to believe that Kit was too wild a spirit to be satisfied with just one man. She began to go on long drinking binges which became longer and more crazed. Giles realized that a line had been crossed when she returned from a four-day bender with dashes tattooed around her neck and the words 'Cut Here' across her windpipe. She had left that night and Giles and the lads had not seen her since.

In truth they were glad to see her go. They were young and wanted to play. After Kit's departure the partying in Spittalfields had moved up a couple of notches as the lads cut loose with complete abandonment and a glorious disregard for the consequences. The following months had born witness to debaucheries that would have left Bacchus himself in need of a detoxification clinic. It was during this period of mayhem that they had met Ethan.

*** ***

They had been in the Duck one night. It may have been nighttime; well chances were it was at night. It was difficult to tell with the Duck. Normal licensing laws didn't seem to apply to it and the windows were so encrusted with fliers that sunlight needed a visa to gain entry.

Liverpool were playing an important match and a large crowd had gathered to watch the 'pool. Chris was a huge fan and had dragged them all out, not that they had needed much encouragement. Lemmy was in his usual spot at the bar high as a kite and telling stories just as colorful. He had a couple of groupies with him though one of them seemed more interested in Giles than the rock star. Giles was playing it cool.

Deadly Dave, an occasional drinking accomplice and a serious vendor of illegal substances was with them and he and Baz were deep in conversation about different film stars they wanted to shag and the positions they would do them in. Chris was not his usual bubbly self. He had had a bad feeling about the match and his premonition was proving itself to be accurate. The 'pool were three goals down. At half time he got up from the table with his scarf around his head like a turban and wobbled out of the bar to get some portions of chips to cheer himself up before the second half.

Giles was surveying the bar, pretending not to notice that the groupie was watching him. A young man caught his attention. He was dressed in a spiky black leather jacket, which would have looked mean on most people, but on him it just looked wrong. His hair was too short and neat and he was wearing gray, recently pressed slacks. He moved through the pub and made his way to the bar. Pigment the barman took his order quickly, which surprised Giles because usually he would make a square wait until he could be bothered to lower himself to serve them. Pigment set his order on the counter and accepted the note that the youth handed him. It was a five-pound note, Giles could tell by its blue color.

Then while Pigments back was turned as he worked the cash register the youth took a large silver talisman from one pocket of the coat waved it through the air in front of him and then slipped it into a different pocket. Pigment turned back to hand him his change and Giles started in his seat. The change included a couple of twenty pound notes. The youth thanked him, pocketed the money and took his drinks back to his seat. Giles couldn't believe what he had seen. No one else in the bar seemed to have noticed.

Chris returned from the chippy with a portion of greasy spuds for Giles but he was no longer paying attention to anything happening at his own table. He was watching the youth on the other side of the bar. Time and time again throughout the night the young man pulled the same stunt; giving Pigment a fiver and raking in a couple of twenties after swiping the talisman. Smiling politely the whole time.

Midnight had come and gone and the day changed name when an angry and very drunk Giles levered himself up from the table and decided to confront the pseudo-punk. He was furious, not because this was his local that the stranger was ripping off but rather because he had shown Giles up to be small time.

They had been supporting themselves for the past few months on Chris' psychic abilities but this guy had lifted more in one night than all three of them did in a week. Every Saturday morning they would congregate in the TV room and put their business hats on. The TV would be changed to the racing channel, the radio would be switched on for live commentary and they would surround themselves with the sports sections of all that days papers.

Chris would sit in front of the goggle box and whenever he had a strong feeling about a team, a boxer or a horse they would mark it off in the papers. They would all take turns at nominating winners. Chris had a sure shot ability but tired quickly. Giles used a pendulum to dowse his winners and got more right than the odds allowed and Baz was simply horrendous. He nominated winners through a process of elimination. He would choose a horse that he believed had a chance of winning. The other two would tell him to forget it and choose another. This would continue until Baz had only one remaining horse that he believed didn't stand a chance in Hell of even getting past the starting post which Chris and Giles would then back heavily.

At lunchtime they would order three taxis and leave individually to place the bets. It was very important that they weren't seen too often or won too much in one place or they would be marked by the London bookies and their easy life would come to an end, as well as the ability to use their knees. Saturday afternoon they would congregate in an agreed watering hole, get the beers in and watch the winnings start to roll in. Saturday nights were always great in Spittalfields.

Giles staggered over to the other side of the pub and almost collided with the youth who was on his way to the bar for another round.

"Hey," slurred Giles putting a hand in his chest. "Whast ur gime?"

The youth just smiled up at him, innocent as an angel.

Giles tried to say that he had been watching him and that his game was up. Giles knew what he was up to and was on to his scam and was giving him ten seconds to up camp and get out of town or he, a Drunken Duck regular, was going to use the full power that this credential allowed him to see that the youth got the beating of his life. And that his coat was crap. What came out was closer to,

"Hrmm guupppp mmmnnn nnn fugging crap."

He shook his head in an effort to organize his thoughts and engage his mouth.

The groupie took that moment to slide a hand across his shoulder and bump his hip with hers.

"Hey sweetie. I've been watching you. Wanna play?"

"Hhrrrggghhh guff kak?"

Ethan touched her forehead with his little finger, the nail of which was painted black and said, "You have crabs. They itch terribly."

Immediately the blood ran out of her face and one hand went to her crotch. She squirmed, her 'sweetie' forgotten and dashed for the toilets. Ethan pulled a small silver vial from his slacks pocket and handed it to Giles.

"Here. This will help."

Giles took swift chug from it and with the immediacy of a slap was sober. Ethan took the vial back and smiled.

"I'm Ethan. I'm a bit of a bastard but you'll get used to me."

"Ripper," said Giles shaking his hand, too shocked to say much else.

"I'm going to be a great sorcerer one day. Want to come along for the ride?"

Giles simply nodded. That had been four months ago and the ride was still only starting.

*** ***

Giles piled the toast on the plates as high as he dared, ladled on loads of spicy beans and garnished the three plates with the sausages. He presented the meals to a round of heart felt applause and accepted a joint as his prize for being 'Britain's bestest baked bean burner'. He sat in his normal seat and toked on the ganja just to set him up for his dinner.

"So what's the plan for tonight lads?"

"The Duck." Suggested Baz. "We could drink cider just to make it different."

Giles shook his head; somehow the Duck wasn't going to cut it this night.

"Or there's the Limelight…"

"Slimeshite." Corrected Chris.

"Right Slimeshite. Mucous Membrane are playing tonight and Valerie will be there." The last part of this sentence became singsongish and was directed at Giles. Giles had absolutely no idea who Valerie was as he refused to set foot in the Slimeshite without having consumed at least two bottles of Buckfast. This meant that he had no memory of any of the occasions he had been there. Baz assured him that Valerie was after some 'upper-class action'. Giles had been burned by the whole Kit incident and now considered himself to be a choosy man. But Kit had been gone a third of a year now and Giles self enforced cold turkey was beginning to get to him.

"She good looking?"

"I'd do her."

Giles looked to Chris knowing that Baz could not be trusted to know what the truth was let alone what it might actually be. Chris pulled a face and shook his head. That settled it for Giles. Valerie was a no-go.

"So what are we going to do tonight?"

Baz shrugged.

"Watch TV?"

Giles slumped. He suddenly felt very down.

"I have an idea," said Chris wiping bean juice from the corner of his mouth.

"This should be good," said Baz without much enthusiasm.

Chris gave him the two-fingered salute. Baz gave him three fingers back, which didn't really exist except in Baz and Chris's world where three were more insulting than two. Chris replied with four and suddenly the finger confrontation escalated. They dropped their forks as they rushed to get to all ten fingers up in the air before the other.

"Lads. Lads. Calm down. Chris what were you going to say?"

"Tell him to stop."

Baz was leaning back in his chair with his feet up and the toes obviously wiggling in his boots.

"Baz pack it in or I'll give you both twenty one."

The two idiots thought about this for a moment then began to laugh.

"Good one man."

"Twenty two," said Chris sticking out his tongue.

"Bastard."

"Go on." said Giles. "What was your idea?"

"Well. I haven't thought this through completely so it might be a bit crazy but how's about this for a plan? I suggest we finish our delectable dinners, drop the plates at our asses and sally forth with all due haste to the Duck where we attempt to consume more beer than is commonly regarded to be humanly possible. About ten we give Deadly Dave a phone and get him to bring some class A's to the gathering. When he arrives we go into the bogs and do as much coke as is required to sort ourselves out. Then we phone taxis to take us to the Marquee club where Black Sabbath are playing tonight. As we wait for the said transport I recommend we drop the acid which Deadly has kindly donated. If my calculations are correct we should be munted by the time the Sabs come on for their encore. Then we hustle in a brisk fashion to the Regency for the end of the nurses disco where we endeavor to cram as many of those hussies into taxis as we can, head back to Spittalfields and start to get seriously wasted."

Giles and Baz looked at each other.

"By Jove," said Giles.

"I think she's got it," said Baz finishing the quote.

"It's a plan."

"A bleeding battle plan."

"Worthy of Wellington."

"I don't even know what munted means," said Chris.

The door opened and Ethan walked in with Olivia in tow. He was carrying a bag from Baba Yagas.

"I heard all that," he said, "And you can forget it. Tonight we do some magic. Some real magic."

*** ***

The front room on the first floor in Spittalfields was the biggest in the hovel. It spanned the width of the house and belonged to Ethan. It had bare twisted wooden floorboards that seemed to have their own weather system blowing through them. Ethan had attached a black curtain to the roof with thumbtacks and it screened his mattress from sight. No one had any idea what else he might have had behind there. They were very rarely invited into his sanctuary.

Giles sat cross-legged against a wall under one of the boarded windows smoking a rollie and watched the proceedings. Ethan had draped a purple robe over his shoulders and was sitting at a chalk circle on the floor. He had a Wampyr bestiary open on the floor before him. Giles had not known that Baba Yaga's carried such hardcore literature. He had been quite happy with their selection of Colin Wilson books.

Baz was on his knees leaning over the circle as he lit the candles that Ethan had around the room, Giles wondered whether they had any actual significance or whether they were just for show. This was his first actual spell. Ethan and Olivia had been spending a lot of time in the room over the past two months and said they were spending their time in contact with ethereal spirits but Giles had his own ideas about what they got up to. Since he had first met him Giles had seen precious little of Ethan's professed abilities and was beginning to put the occurrences of that night in the Duck down to the amount of alcohol he had consumed.

Baz finished lighting the candles and sat down near Giles. He gave Giles a thin smile and shrugged. Giles nodded back. Whether Ethan was sorcerer or not he had a strange effect on people and Baz became unusually tame in his company. Chris was sitting opposite Ethan with a worried expression on his face. He was staring at the book Ethan was reading from and his eyes moved, not in the normal fashion of someone following sentences but rather as if the contents of the pages were moving in a fashion only he could see. Dancing in a world that only Chris had access to.

The bedroom door opened and Olivia came in. She had a bottle of Buckfast in one hand and a small brown bag in the other that Ethan had sent her to her aunts to get. She set the bag beside Ethan but he was immersed in his preparations and ignored her presence. She sat down beside Giles with a small shy smile. Baz leered at Giles behind her back making hand movements that indicated the size of her breasts. Giles glared at him and he stopped clowning for a while.

She offered Giles the bottle of tonic wine and Giles accepted it and took a short drink of the thin alcohol. It was rank but somehow that fitted the occasion. He handed it back. He and Olivia had never really talked. She always hung about with Ethan but she was always making doe eyes at Giles. His young ego had taken her lack of conversation with him as a sign of attraction. Giles thought that Ethan's girl fancied him more than she fancied Ethan. He handed the bottle back.

Ethan turned to a new page in the book and Chris moaned. His eyes closed and he began to rock slightly. Baz gave Giles a look but it was Giles turn to shrug.

"I've been meaning to ask you," said Olivia into Giles ear. Giles felt a sudden wave of goose flesh cover his arms that surprised him. She had a beautiful 'proper' London accent and her breath was warm and moist against his ear lobes. She was leaning very close into him.

"Why does everyone call you Ripper? It doesn't really seem you."

Giles couldn't stop a blush creeping up his face. She really was an attractive woman. He suddenly realized that he was very jealous of Ethan.

Baz butted in, he had overheard the question.

"Its cause when you need a play list the Ripper's the man to get it for you."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, a play list. The sheet of paper that a band sticks to the monitors on stage so the singer knows what song they're going to play next."

Olivia looked back at Giles and there was a strange expression on her face. To Giles it was almost post-coital.

"See we were at this Pistols gig and we were all bollixed and there was a lot of talk in the pub before about who was going to get the play list from Rotten. Those things are worth a lot of money in the right circles. So anyway at the end Johnny holds up his list teasing the crowd and he's about to tear it up so nobody gets it and from out of nowhere the drunkest man in the planet rips it out of his hands and stage dives into the crowd."

Baz jerked a thumb in Giles direction.

"Ripper. Get him drunk enough and he'll get you whatever play list you want. It's a gift."

Olivia nodded.

"I thought it might be for another reason,' she said to herself but for everyone to hear.

Baz went back to leering behind her back so only Giles could see.

"Lets begin." Said Ethan suddenly.

*** ***

They all shuffled closer to the circle. Chris was on Ethan's right, Olivia on his left. Giles was beside her and then came Baz.

"Join hands." Ordered Ethan. Surprisingly Baz didn't complain about having to hold the hands of two other men. They all joined and almost immediately the temperature of the room changed. Giles shivered and could feel Baz doing the same. Ethan began the spell.

"At this time we gather to call upon the spirit of the ancient and awful hunter the Wampyr. Demon of the shadows, listen to our plea and engage our souls with your vaulted essence."

Ethan's eyes rolled back in his head showing only whites.

"Give to us this day a glimpse of your majesty so that we may spread your beautiful and terrible glory to all the ignorant in your domain. Let us be your unholy disciples. As the Jew sent his own vessels amongst the flock send us into the world to claim it as your own. Bless us if it so pleases you. Show us your spirit. Reveal to your children how lowly and reviled we possesseth of souls truly are."

A surge passed through the human circle. Their hands seemed to fuse and Giles felt himself drop as if he had slid into the floor or the world had risen up around him. The room seemed to grow darker and the candles wicked slower, undulating rather than quickly flickering. Chris's lips were forming silent words from the bestiary. Ethan continued.

"Gastis-Konos. Errigus. Teppes. Von Richter. Your lineage is known and adored by all assembled in worship. Show us your spirit. Show your adored and hated spawn the depth of your dark light. I command ye to obey this lowly vessel. Find us to be your sustenance and feed us with poison. Let the phlegm from your throat be as manna for a thousand of our young."

"Ethan?" hissed Giles. "Stop. It's too strong. We have to go slower."

Chris's chanting grew louder and more fevered. Giles recognized the language and it chilled him to the core of his being. It was one of the lost languages. During his teen years he had on occasion secretly removed some of his mothers tomes from her personal library and taken them to quiet places where he had absorbed their contents without her knowledge. He knew of his connection to the ancient order of Watchers through his mother's bloodline. After University she had wanted him to follow her into the council. His move to London had struck her like an icicle through the heart.

Ethan ignored Giles plea and continued with his devotions. On Chris's face a honey like fluid began to flow like sweat. He was unaware of the secretion; tied in knots by the rapture. Giles tried to pull away, tried to break the circle but his body was not his to command. They were under the thrall of another force.

'Dawnrazor!" Ethan suddenly roared. "I implore thee. Reveal your birth into this world so that we may rejoice."

In the air before them a dark shadow began to swirl. Faces appeared in its center. They wore expressions of tormented damnation and screamed in Giles soul. He became aware of a single consciousness at the core of the apparition. It had no name as would be understood by corporeal mortals. Its presence was terrible and overwhelming. The closest Giles could come to naming it was to describe it as a sensation; a burning hunger. The presence was an unquenchable pain in his abdomen. This was horror personified and he couldn't stop himself from whimpering, partly from the horrendous pain of a predator's stomach that was not full of prey. This demon would never stop. The more it spread its hunger the hungrier it would become.

He felt lost. He was completely detached from the group; alone on a savanna, far away from the protection of the trees. Somewhere in the shoulder high grass there was something hunting him. It was coming closer. Tearing towards him with death in its eyes. He was running, running as every man runs from their mortality, running as the first man to be taken down by this predator had run.

Suddenly it was upon him and its ferocity was beyond the design of nature. Ethan had summoned the first spirit that had come to earth and claimed the first human. It was black and fast and terribly inhuman. It sprang at him from the cover and he allowed it to take him for now, in death, his life made sense. It was completed. He saw himself for the animal he was; the animal all humans are. The Pnarwaidh lived to feed. It lived to propagate and spread a hunger that could never be satiated while humanity lived on earth. Giles could feel its teeth piercing his body, could feel the demon spill his fluids and drain his soul. It had its first taste of human and it changed. Began to adapt, to take on this new form in order to make its prey easier to hunt.

The pain became worse as its desire to maim and kill was added to his own desire to live. The two did not cancel out; they were both base and primitive wants. They had the same source in the universe. He was staring up into the bright sun beating down on the savanna and its rays seared his retinas and slowly he drifted away as the changing demon finished feeding and moved into the darkness that surrounded his death. Sun was life. The vampire's new shape feared the sun. Giles died as the first man had died. A twisted monkey in the middle of a vast continent.

Giles jerked forwards with a shout. Olivia fell against him. They were back in Spittalfields, if they had ever left the cruddy room. Ethan gave Giles the biggest shit eating grin Giles had ever seen and Giles had to admit he was impressed. The experience didn't seem to have fazed Ethan in the slightest.

"I was expecting Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. That was way cooler." He said.

"How did you break the spell?"

"I didn't. Numb-nuts here did."

Giles looked about the group. Chris was wiping the sticky ectoplasm from his face and onto his 'Van DerGraph Generator' T-shirt. He seemed to be back to normal. Baz however was on his hands and knees and leaning over the chalk circle with one arm outstretched. His face was as white as a nun's inner thigh and he was shaking as if petrified out of his mind. He had clearly wet himself.

At some point during the spell he had been able to break from the circle, had taken a safety pin from his jacket and rammed it right through the meat of his palm and out the other side. Its evil point projected skywards from between the bones on top of his hand. Blood was running from his outstretched fingers into the center of the circle.

"They seemed hungry,' he said in a shaky voice, "I thought if I gave them something to eat they might fuck off."

"Good thinking man." Said Giles wearily. He had completely been caught up in the spirit of the first vampire. He tried to remember the name that the first predator had called itself but the experience was already evaporating and slipping away. He looked to Ethan but he was wearing an unbelievably smug expression that spoke volumes about how awesome he considered himself to be. Perhaps it had been having them all here with their different talents, perhaps it was because they were in Spittalfields, or perhaps there was some cosmic event that they were unaware of. Whatever the reason, Giles felt sure that an amateur like Ethan should not have been able to cast such a powerful spell by himself.

Olivia had pulled the pin from Baz's hand and was helping him staunch the bleeding.

"So what should we do as an encore?" asked Ethan.

"Go to the fucking Duck and get mindless and not think anymore about vampires and demons and magic ever again."

No one argued that Baz's idea was the best anyone would come up with. At some point during the proceedings of that night the Scourges of Albion decided to start working towards someday summoning a real demon. They eventually did. Only four survived the experience.

**Hell**

**One**

Buffy leapt up into a tree and scaled the thick trunk with the sureness of a monkey. She found it surprisingly easy to get a good grip on the rough bark. Probably something to do with the talons her nails had grown into. With a sideways leap she cleared the foliage and bounced along a thick branch that ran parallel with the ground. Glittering insects franticly fluttered out of the way of the approaching Slayer. At the swaying termination of the branch she hunkered down and took a moment to enjoy the sensation of the warm night air blowing through her dreadlocks.

Anya glided through the air towards her.

"Do you see it?"

Buffy nodded. Poking out of the jungle ahead was the pulsing point of a pyramid.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Hell." replied Anya simply.

"Should we worry?"

The Succubus settled on the branch behind the Slayer and spread her wings for balance. Buffy regarded her for a moment. She was naked and her jet-black skin had become sleek like the leather of fetish boots. Her face, while still recognizably that of Anya, was more demonic and perversely, terribly beautiful

"Do you feel worried?" asked Anya.

Buffy stared at her hands. She opened and closed them a few times feeling strength she had never experienced before. Her senses were wired and the fauna of the whole jungle were an open book to her. Her hearing was so acute that she could hear beetles rummaging in the mulch below and the sucking sound of wasps laying their eggs under leaves. Her visual and olfactory senses were also augmented beyond belief and she was able to perceive all the many different levels of life in the swarming rainforest. She was the top predator here. There was nothing in Hell she feared. She was the Slayer. Not the current Slayer, nor the fractured spirit of the first human Slayer, but rather, Buffy was the complete Slayer. It had finally come home; returned to where it had been stolen from many millennia before. She breathed in deeply then snorted the air out through her nostrils.

"No. Not in the slightest." she replied. She understood why the passage through the rift had altered them. There was no room for humanity in this place. In Hell mortality was an alien concept; Anya's injuries were part of her humanity and therefore irrelevant. They were still themselves, Buffy Summers and Anya Harris. Though Hell was now their reality and they had adapted in accordance with its inhuman influence. These were their demonic aspects and they were powerful. Buffy, who had always felt drawn to the evil she protected earth from suddenly thought she understood why it had enthralled her so. It was simpler. Hell rewarded power for powers sake. Earth was not as generous to goodness, as her life had been testament to.

"We should go there." Said Buffy indicating the pyramid with a tilt of her head.

"Why? We can go wherever we want. We can be whatever we want. Our lives in Sunnydale can be over if we wish them to be. Why go there?"

"You can do what you want. I have to go. There's something waiting for me."

With that Buffy sprang from the branch and with arms outstretched flew into the next tree. She caught another branch and landed on all fours. It bent under her weight then flipped back propelling her high into the humid air.

With a hiss of irritation Anya launched herself into the same space between the trees that Buffy had cleared and soared high into the sky above the treetops. With gentle, flapping corrections of her wings she followed the trail of disturbed bats and swinging vines that was the only evidence of the Slayers passage.

Far away the stepped pyramid, exactly like those built by the Mayans in Guatemala, began to pulse like a beacon. Its light drew Buffy towards it like a pup to a teat.


	26. Chapter 26

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Two**

Captain Graham Galloway wiped a cold sweat from his forehead. He hoped he was ready for this responsibility. All around him tanks revved their engines waiting for his order to advance. His helmets com-link buzzed. He opened a channel.

"Galloway."

"Sir." A crackling voice came through on the other side. "Unit Bravo. We've found the General sir."

"And?"

"He's dead sir. He's been murdered with what seems to have been a small caliber weapon."

That bastard Finn had assassinated him. If he wasn't already dead Galloway was going to finish the job. He changed channel going to the open frequency.

"Attention all personnel; listen up. This is Galloway. The General is dead. As highest-ranking officer remaining on base I'm taking charge of the mission from this point onwards. There will be no deviations from the general's original plan. You know what he would have wanted you to do."

"DRINK BEER FROM-AH THEIR HUMPIN' MOMMA'S SKULLS" went up the roar from the assembled troops.

"All squadrons… ADVANCE!"

Throughout the massive hanger engines roared and the gates to the rift began to rise.

"Come on back to the barn Unit Bravo. And bring the Generals body with you. We're taking him in with us."

"Its what he would have wanted sir."

Galloway terminated the link and pulled his blackened goggles down over his eyes. It mightn't be how he would have wanted it but Hell was definitely where the old bastard belonged. Galloway took one last deep breath full of diesel fumes and hammered on the turret and his tank lurched forward towards the rift. They were going in with traditional weapons. There was no time to acquire a new harmonic and download it. His balls took on the dimensions of lentils.


	27. Chapter 27

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Three**

"We can't keep this up." Shrieked Olivia.

"We have to. Don't think about it. Relax. Take the strain and let it take you. Don't fight Jazz." Said Giles. "Just let it be. Relax into it."

"Try to find the fun in the situation." Suggested Ethan. "Its what I do."

Around them the rift surged sporadically. Higher powers were at work here. The rift had no will of its own. The universe itself had decided that its existence could be tolerated no longer. It wanted it closed and what the universe wants it usually gets.

Giles was Buffy's only hope. He had to keep the rift open long enough to give his charge time to escape. To get back to earth. He would die before he let it collapse and seal her in Hell. Ethan and Jazz were powerful and as a group they were even more so but they were distracted and weak.

Every fiber in his brain that had been subjected to the training of the Watchers Council knew that this was emotional and wrong. He should let the rift close. Another Slayer had already been chosen. Buffy was not essential to the fight against evil anymore. Anything could be coming through the rift and invading earth while they kept it open. Every neuron in his mind told him that that was the right thing to do.

His heart however was speaking a different language. It was one a parent with a seriously ill child might recognize. He just could not allow Buffy to be abandoned. While he had breath in his body she wouldn't be. He had to be the center. He had to take charge of the trio and bend them to his will.

"Olivia, we could be here for forever or nanoseconds. Time is irrelevant. We could die or we may live. That also is irrelevant. All that matters is doing and yet not doing; being and yet not being. We are the circle. We have no beginning and we have no end. We are Ouroboros, we are the link that means nothing yet without which there can be nothing."

As Giles spoke Ethan and Olivia closed their eyes and settled into the sonorous and hypnotic tone of his voice. They ceased to resist the pressure and unnaturalness of being in the rift and instead accepted their situation without ego. Very slowly the rift began to settle and calm.

Giles closed his eyes and began to meditate and the Scourge's breathing began to synchronize. With hands joined they became one, a single being representing the four elements from which they were composed. This was no time to be clever or contemplate double crosses Giles realized. Getting smart would just confuse and distract. This was a time for simplicity.

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

Giles began to meditate. He had once been taught the universal truth about simplicity: that it was more reliable than complexity. He had once contemplated his use of a chainsaw. He realized that although it could be used to open an envelope, his finger did a better job. The simple was better than the complex. He had found himself staring at his finger and a shocking consequence of that truth occurred to him.

There was no such thing as simplicity.

Because he was born with a finger but had had to pay for a chainsaw, which could do things his digit could not do, he had always thought of the chainsaw as being complex. However, when compared to his finger it was an empty page, bereft of interest.

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

His finger was part of a nervous system more complex than anything else discovered in the universe. It was composed of fine muscles, which were themselves composed of millions of cells that were impossibly small multi-process chemical factories. Those same muscles, controlled by the brain could guide a bow across a violin or plait a daughter's hair. He had stared at his finger for hours marveling at the complexity and beauty that was hidden right under his nose. The most obvious place in the world was exactly where most people never look.

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

The same applied to the word 'Om'. So simple that everyone knows of its existence. Giles knew the word well and though he had spent years of mental energy contemplating its depths he was still a beetle skating on the surface of a fathomless lake. He had used it deliberately in this occasion. He needed the other two relaxed and focused on the job at hand and he needed some simple method in which to do it. Meditating to the word 'Om' was it.

It was the bastardization of an ancient Asian word that was also a prayer. They pronounced it 'AUM'. Three letters, the first from the back of the throat where the gut band animal portion of the human resided, the second letter passed across the tongue with which the mind produced words and the last letter exited across the lips and became the sound through which the prayer was communicated. The space between the beginning of the next prayer and the end of the first was the forth letter, the void in which all life lives. The four elements that gave rise to life combined in one sound.

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

"Oooooooommmmmmmm."

As the prayer became stronger it also became quieter in their mouths. As it caused more of an effect on the rift it grew fainter in their minds. The three became one and together produced the void out of everything around them. An instant or an eternity, it meant nothing to them. Giles had had no devious intentions in mind; he had just wanted to save Buffy. Through simplicity and love he managed to do what Ethan and the Initiative had failed to do.

The rift became a part of the universe.

Above the immobile Scourges of Albion the huge orange squid-angel reached out three tentacles and touched one to each of their heads. It was perhaps curious about what they were doing. From the corners of its immense eyes tears of pure joy began to flow.


	28. Chapter 28

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Four**

Buffy dropped from a tree and prowled on all fours through some undergrowth until she arrived at a small clearing that surrounded the base of the pyramid. Anya was waiting for her, staring up at the bright light that illuminated the surrounding area. Buffy moved to her side. She found it easier to lope than walk.

"What's up there?" asked Anya.

"Answers. I was brought here for a reason."

"Buffy that stupid car took us here. We followed Giles; the Initiative took him not demons. We are here by accident."

"We may have been at the base by accident but when whatever is in there felt my presence it reached out and pulled me closer. I once met the first Slayer. Giles took me to her to try and answer questions I had that were beyond him. She said that 'Death was my gift'. I never understood what that meant and anything I did think of I didn't like. I have to know Anya. I have to find out more. And perhaps the way home is in there as well."

"I don't think it'll be that simple."

"Maybe, we have to try. Are you coming?"

Anya turned away and stared up into the sky with a dark expression on her face.

"For centuries I was a demon. I had power, just like you Slayer. I lost it but I adapted. What choice did I have? Xander made that change bearable. But now…"

She trailed off as a battle waged inside her.

"Anya. Xander loves you."

"I know. And I love him. But this…this…this is so much simpler. I don't have to worry about him anymore. I don't have to worry about my mortality and myself. I can be what I was before, a demon. Though now…well just look at me. No skanky face for Anyaka any more. I'm stronger than I ever was. I have true power now. I could have demons of my own. Could make a place for myself in Hell that I would never have been able to experience in Sunnydale with Xander."

Anger began to creep into her voice.

"No more sleeping in basements, no more scraping together the rent every month. No more patrolling and danger and fear of being hurt. Can you not feel it? Others are scared of us now. We're no longer the weak."

"Anya. It's not real. Don't let Hell get to you. Xander is right now probably going out of his mind with worry wondering where you are."

"I don't care." Bellowed Anya, "I've had enough. I want to be what I was before and more. You can feel the energy in me. I know you can." She jabbed an accusatory finger at Buffy. "I've seen you watch me. You can feel the sex just waiting to come out of me. I can have whomever I want and they'll thank me for the privilege. I'm the scarlet harlot, the whore of Babylon the seductress that lives to draw a good man away from his wife. I can do it all and feel no guilt because that's what I am now. I'm the bitch all woman fear. I'm free."

She spread her wings and shot straight into the air like a missile.

"Earth asked too much of me. You all did." She cried as she flew away.

Buffy watched her go. She knew she should feel sad, should try to bring her back but she didn't. She had her own self to think about and she was determined not to allow herself to succumb to the selfish temptations of Hell like Anya had just done. She wanted to go home, but first she had questions she wanted answered. Why her? Why had she been chosen? Why had she been given the gift of death?

On the side of the pyramid facing her a large flight of stairs ascended to the first terrace of the building. She climbed them cautiously trying to ignore the carvings that decorated the flight and peered over the top. Before her was a dark entrance way. The stone around it had been cut into the shape of a horrible reptiles mouth, open and ready to consume prey. It was flanked by two other smaller flights of stairs which joined behind the entrance to form another wide flight which she guessed would do the same thing on the next terrace. With elbows and knees splayed she crept close to the first floor opening. She could sense no immediate danger and went inside the pyramid.

It led into a cold corridor that she followed to a wide room. The floor of the room was set deep within the pyramid. Torches burnt in metal holders along the rooms many yellow walls and cast dark shadows, which guttered like living things. For someone who had been so closely associated with a Hellmouth she had never given what Hell might actually look like much thought. She had perhaps expected lakes of fire and pitchforks. This was not at all like the images she had been sold as a child. She suspected that this dimension of Hell was more about a state of mind than obvious fear.

The room was stepped like the pyramid but in reverse. It looked like one of the Escher drawings in Giles house; it was wider at the top and descended to the floor in contracted levels. At the center of the lowest floor something blue was glimmering on a dais. Buffy had felt all-powerful in the jungle but here she felt out of her element. She didn't feel as if she was the top predator in the pyramid. She gently dropped from floor to floor, ignoring the many short staircases until she got to the bottom. She slid through shadows until she could hide no more and moved out the relative safety of concealment and onto the open center of the floor. She tried to get the image of a mouse scampering around a spring-trap out of her head but couldn't.

She crept closer to the Dais and rose slowly up until she could see the blue light. It was like a tornado of burning sapphire light. She stared at it mesmerized by its beauty and wondered what it was.

"It's a soul." Said an ancient and croaky voice. "It was your soul to be exact. The soul of the woman Buffy Anne Summers."

Very slowly Buffy turned round, talons ready to gouge and run. She found herself looking at a desiccated old man leaning against a stout staff. He smiled at her.

"Welcome home Slayer." He cackled. "We have all missed you."


	29. Chapter 29

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Five**

Riley picked himself up and with a quizzical expression surveyed the carnage. All his internal systems were without damage and operating within normal parameters. He checked the disruptor and that it was still connected to his battery. The weapon was running perfectly.

He climbed up out of the crater his descent had caused and scanned his surroundings. The jungle was teeming with life though none which could threaten him. He looked again at the crater and for a moment he felt at burst of guilt at the environmental damage he had caused. Trees were knocked down for one hundred meters in every direction. He blanked that thought, this wasn't earth he thought. He had made that mistake once before.

Riley performed a few calculations and estimated that taking the force required to cause such destruction into account and assuming that gravity did not change from dimension to dimension then he had fallen over four kilometers before hitting home. His memory had no record of the fall. The passage through the rift must have temporarily disabled it. That combined with the trauma of Spike's grenades going off in his face. He looked about but there was no sign of the vampire. That didn't really matter to him. Spike had often said that after having the chip put in his head he would have been happier being dust. Perhaps the grenades had blown him away from the rift and the Initiative had caused his wish to come true.

A Pnarwaidh bounced out from the tress and came towards him. Riley leveled the disruptor and gave it a second to charge up. Time to put the weapon through its first field trial he thought.

"That was some entrance mate." Said the Pnarwaidh. "Took me forever to find you."

Riley raised the disruptors business end at the last moment and its beam sliced through the fallen trees behind Spike. He bounded for cover in some bushes.

"Spike? Come out if that's you."

"Of course its me you pillock. That fall fry all your circuits you freak?" Spike raised two red eyes from the fallen canopy. Riley stared at him and a smile began to crease his stony face.

"You feeling okay Spike?"

"Never better mate," said the big black bollock as it approached the soldier. "Sorry about that shit with the grenades. But you know what they say 'No blood no penalty'."

"Quite alright. Worked out quite well in the end."

"This is Hell ennit? You've been here before ain't you? This is where whatever did that to you happened."

Riley slowly nodded and looked northwards. His new body needed no rest but he still had a human brain and that needed some rest. He sat down at the edge of the crater and Spike hopped over and squatted down seemingly oblivious to his change in appearance. He was a vampire; Riley could hardly show him his reflection on his plastisteel body.

"When I left Sunnydale I never thought anything good would happen again in my life. I had lost the woman I loved..."

"Don't talk crap soldier boy. You didn't lose her, you threw her away."

"I didn't throw her away. She pushed me away."

"So that's why you let weak assed vamps suck your blood. Out of self-pity. I told her what you were up to by the way."

"I know," growled Riley.

"I always said you weren't dark enough for her."

Spike had no idea how thin the ice he was treading on was.

"I was dark enough for Buffy Summers. Its whatever makes her the Slayer I wasn't dark enough for."

"She went after you you know. Ended up burbling in a heap on the ground all her shouting drowned out as your helicopter took off. Bleedin' tragic really."

Riley stared at him. If he had sensed that Spike was trying to drive the knife in any deeper he would have killed him on the spot. He didn't. Spike seemed to be genuine about how their relationship had ended. Riley looked away. It could have all been so different he thought. But that was in the past. If he hadn't left he would never have met Egg and that had been the real thing.

"I rejoined the Initiative, but it was changed from the section I had been recruited by. It was leaner, more serious and committed to defending earth. There's a war coming Spike. A war to end all wars. Everything that has gone before is small fry compared to this confrontation. This will be a battle of apocalyptic proportions. This stalemate can't go on much longer with most of humanity living their lives unaware of the demons that walk among us. The Initiative are getting ready for it and are prepared to initiate it if we sense the enemy are weak."

"I joined an elite black operations squadron. We concentrated our affairs in the Southern American continent because that is where we are sure the war is going to start. I pulled off a couple of impossible missions: I didn't care whether I lived or died. I just wanted to blank out what had happened between Buffy and I. My successes attracted the attention of General Markwell who was putting together a base that was going to work directly against Hell. Take the battle to them and destroy the source of the evil that was threatening humanity."

"It was there that I met Egg; she was my commanding officer. Neither of us had ever expected to meet anyone else again. We had both dedicated ourselves to the Initiative. She was so beautiful and very slowly we discovered we were falling in love. This was different than with Buffy. That was an infatuation by comparison. Buffy never loved me, she needed someone like me in her life but she never loved me. She was my first love but I was just a rebound to her. I could never compete with Angel. But I learnt from the experience. See, there are two compartments in your heart. One for your first love, the second for your true love. If you're very lucky you never need the second but that wasn't to be for me. I will never forget Buffy; her memory occupies that first chamber but time passed and the pain faded. Egg took that second piece of my heart and that was so much stronger than the first. We were meant to be together."

Riley flashed the image he had taken in his quarters behind his eyes and stared at it and felt a pain he had never known with Buffy. She was so perfect and strong with her brown eyes and long flowing blonde hair. It had taken him forever to put Buffy behind him.

"Meant?"

"Yes. Meant. Past tense."

Riley sighed and stared northwards again.

"The Mayans occupied what is now Mexico and Guatemala and they had a huge and powerful civilization before the Spaniards came and brought it all down in their search for gold. The Mayans were unique. Never before had a civilization organized itself in a similar way nor had even remotely the same perception of time and the universe. Our tech boys were interested about where this influence might have come from. When strange demonic activity was centralized around an isolated pyramid deep in the Guatemalan jungles we were called in to investigate and neutralize the threat."

"Egg led the squad. We dropped about five kilometers from here," Riley pointed over Spike's spherical head. "We proceeded on foot to the target. I was second in command. We approached the pyramid and acquired our quarry. But it was a trap. Every sensor, even GPS said we were in Guatemala but at some point in the jungle we crossed a dimension and entered Hell on earth. Our back lines were taken out by a demon."

Riley looked Spike square in the eyes.

"You can't know what it was like. No bullshit Spike. I can't stand you most of the time but I've fought beside you and I know you can walk the talk."

"Cheers pal. Love you longtime too."

" But this demon, I hope there is a God out there somewhere cause that's all that stands a chance against this thing. It was straight out of the Old Testament. I was terrified. You would have been terrified as well. Not Egg. She was a better soldier than me. She held her ground and organized the troops and met it head on. I was screaming for us to retreat and I think I was the straw the broke the squads cohesion. They all scattered. Egg looked at me with this expression asking me what had I done and then the demon was upon us and I received these injuries. I held onto consciousness just long enough to see Egg being consumed in flames."

"You survived though mate." Said Spike gently putting one paddle like foot on the soldier's thigh as a form of comfort. "That's got to count for something."

Riley spat on the ground, disgusted with himself.

"I was dead Spike. I was completely burnt by fire. I died along with the rest of the squad. But something happened. What it was has I have never been able to explain and why I was chosen to be returned I have no idea but it must have happened soon after I died or else I wouldn't have had any life for the medics to revive. I suddenly appeared in the base. The rift opened for the first time and what was left of me fell out and onto the ground. It was from the readings taken while the rift was briefly open that Initiative scientists got the idea of opening their own rift. It was exactly the edge Markwell had been waiting for. I didn't care anymore. I had lost Egg. I just wanted one more chance at that demon. This body and this weapon will give me that. I just want one shot at it. I don't care if I kill it or not I just want it to feel some of the pain of what is was like for me to lose Egg."

"You know where this pyramid is mate?"

"Intimately. The coordinates are seared in my internal memory."

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go kick some demon tail."

"Spike don't you want to try and find a way back through the rift?"

"Nah fuck it mate. By the sounds of this war I don't stand a chance whatever side I'm on."

Riley looked down at Spike.

"If that's what you want then follow me."

"Fucking A. Sure what could be better than having the Big Bad on your side?"

Spike tried to advertise his presence to the whole jungle.

"Here. Hold on." He said with panic rising in his voice. "Where the hell have my arms gone?"


	30. Chapter 30

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Six**

The first tanks rolled up to the rift. They were equipped with huge pneumatic arms at the side that came forwards and deposited large ramps in front of the squadron. The ramps disengaged automatically and the tanks' caterpillar tracks bit in and pulled them up into the rift.

The rift had been unusually quiet recently and not fluctuating as violently as it had been doing previously. None of Galloway's men noticed. They were focused on war with Hell and proceeded forwards regardless. As each tank disappeared into the rift it was accompanied by an enormous flash before its rear was sucked in. The rest of the first squadron entered the rift up the ramps and disappeared one by one. Galloway's tank was the last of the first squadron to go up. He had insisted that Markwell's corpse was lashed to the front of the tank before it entered.

As he went through the airborne squad moved into position and started to climb the ramps, the helicopters looking as if they had been doused in water with their propellers flat against their cockpits as smaller vehicles towed them in. The rift began to pulse. Its old fluctuations began to reappear as the advancing humans began to destabilize its harmony.


	31. Chapter 31

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Seven**

"You may call me Ondancetron."

"Okay." Buffy crept in a circle around the man trying to sidle her way to the stairs that led to the rooms entrance. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"It did once." Ondancetron sighed. "You have been missing a very long time."

"What do you mean?" Buffy stopped circling; something about his demeanor interested her.

"How much do you understand about yourself?"

"No. I'm not answering any questions yet. You can, starting with who exactly you are."

"I told you," he said wearily, "My name is Ondancetron."

"That means nothing. What are you doing here in Hell? I've got to tell you that the old man image aside it doesn't endear you to me too much."

"I am Ondancetron one of the four Lords of, as you insist upon calling it, Hell."

"You're the Devil?"

"Good grief no. Old Saint Nick is a couple of floors up," Ondancetron indicated the ceiling of the chamber but Buffy got the idea that he wasn't talking about somewhere further up in the pyramid. "I am one of the four…siblings…who control this realm. We are very ancient, the devil as you would recognize it is a much more recent arrival though it is descended from this realms influence. Bugger's gone and usurped all our glory though."

"What are you?"

"I am what I am. Can you say the same?"

"I'm Buffy."

"No, you are the Slayer. The Buffy human is irrelevant." His voice became sterner as he said this and he exerted himself to raise the staff and point it at her.

"I am not irrelevant." She growled.

"No of course not. Please, do an old man a favor and help me sit before you have him go through millennia of missed time." He held out a trembling hand for her assistance. Buffy looked about her with the image of the mouse scampering around a trap still fresh in her mind. She relented and quickly covered the ground between them and taking his hand helped him sit on a step.

He didn't let go of her hand; instead he patted the step beside him.

"Indulge an old man." he said.

"You're beginning to play this weak old man act out."

He laughed.

"I have missed you my little Slayer. We all have. You were so different from how we expected you to be."

Buffy couldn't help return his smile. It seemed to be so genuine.

"We've never met before. You don't know me."

"I might not know you," he said pointing at her, "but I know you." He tapped her chest. "I know the soul inside. I should do. You were created from a part of all of us. Me included." He suddenly groaned and bent over clutching his body.

"What's wrong?" Buffy felt a moment of concern as she remembered where she was and the change Hell had produced in Anya. She grew wary that she was being deliberately distracted.

"What did you mean when you said that that soul was me."

"Not you," he snapped, "The girl. Have you learnt nothing?"

Buffy broke away from his grip.

"I think I'll be going now. It's been fun but I have a world to return to and a Watcher to save."

"Wait. Please wait. I'm sorry. It's the pain, it tests my patience."

"What's wrong with you? Are you dying?"

This last question sent Ondancetron into paroxysms of laughter.

"I certainly hope not." He wheezed.

Buffy shook her head.

"You're definitely the strangest demon I've ever met."

"I'm not a demon. In the same way…" he struggled for a moment to complete the analogy, "Eclipses do not alter the weather on your world."

He read the expression on her face and expounded.

"I am not a demon. The races you regard as being demonic are descended from us, my siblings and I, though we are not ourselves demons. In the same way God is not a human."

"You're a God?"

"Yes. To demons, though they would not know my name. They would know names their ancestors called us without realizing that they were describing diluted and mixed versions of us."

"And the Slayer is one of you?"

"No. The Slayer is our creation. The demons grew from us without our will being involved. We created you deliberately. She was the only being we gave birth to that we cared for and the humans stole you from us. Used you against us. Limited your powers and confused you by sending you from one innocent virgin to another so your heritage would be lost and your desire to return home would be negated."

"But why is death my gift?"

"For you share spirit with me and I am Death incarnate my child."


	32. Chapter 32

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Eight**

Buffy backed away from Ondancetron.

"You're lying. This is Hell. It's based on lies. None of this is true." She leapt two flights of steps in one bound.

"Slayer stay." He staggered to his feet. "Do not run. You can leave if that is your wish but let us talk longer. We have been without you too long."

Buffy cleared flight after flight of steps heading towards the entrance letting his cries diminish as she put more distance between herself and him. It couldn't be the truth. There was no way she could be Deaths daughter. What about all the good she had done? Why would she have saved the earth so many times if down deep she was evil? Suddenly she wished Giles were here. He always seemed to know what to say.

She landed on the top level of the chamber and half ran, half bounded to the opening that led to the corridor out of the pyramid. Her senses registered something coming towards her. It was a dark shape in the corridor that seemed to draw light towards it rather than reflect it away. She screeched to a halt on the stone floor with her heart suddenly pounding in her chest. The figure came towards her like something from a nightmare. It was black beyond belief and as it lowered its head to pass through the entrance to the room it was as if gravity around it changed. The air seemed to distort and become treacle like as flames blasted from its face.

It seemed a mile high yet the demon or whatever it was had passed through the same doorway she had previously come through. How could it use the same entrance if it was as big as she sensed it was? She reeled unable to process the information and Lucifuge came gradually closer. The creature knelt down and reached toward her with one enormous hand. Buffy simultaneously perceived a figure as threatening as an erupting volcano approaching her as well as one no more dangerous than Xander.

Ondancetron had climbed the stairs.

"Slayer do not be afraid. He means you no harm."

"Bigger they are more there is for me to hit." Buffy launched herself at the monstrous demon with all the power her legs possessed. She became a gray blur as she pulled back one fist and drove it as hard as she was able into the dog-faced creature. It howled and flames exploded across the ceiling blackening the walls as she knocked it clean on its ass. She stood on its chest breathing heavily with her fists clenched.

Ondancetron ran to the creature's side and put his hands on its head.

"Slayer desist. I implore you. His appearance aside Lucifuge meant you no harm. He is as glad to see you as I am."

Buffy leapt from his body a sudden embarrassment growing in her chest.

"Tell me what is going on. I don't understand any of this." She wailed tearing at her thick strands of hair.

"Ishosantos. Restrain her." Commanded Ondancetron. A swarm of insects flew from the entrance and massed around the Slayer. She thrashed at them with her nails but all her strikes missed the small targets and gradually Buffy was driven back into a corner. The huge black demon climbed back to its feet with Ondancetron's help and Buffy swore that the expression on its face was exactly the same as that of an infant that had been scolded for some reason it did not understand.

She furiously fought the stinging insects but with one word from Ondancetron they were gone. Their dark swarm congregated and became the shape of a young male child. He ran forwards and grabbed Buffy around the legs.

"You see. Ishosantos has missed you as much as Lucifuge and I. These are the siblings I told you about. Together with a fourth, who you cannot meet, we gave birth to you."

"Why can't I meet him?"

"Because he is the void. He almost truly does not exist."

"That's makes as much sense as anything else I've heard tonight." Buffy tried to separate herself from the clingy infant at her waist.

"So you are all the Lords of Hell then? You three and your invisible other? I've got to tell you, I'm not impressed."

"I could impress you if you would like. We all could." Said Ondancetron with a wicked twinkle in his eyes.

"No its okay. I believe you."

Lucifuge came close again and slowly reached out one hand to her with a single digit extended. Buffy did not resist this time. He gently brushed her face with the finger and his mouth split into, what Buffy assumed, was for him a smile.

"Yeah pleased to meet you too you scary big freaking monster."

Ondancetron clasped his hands in glee.

"This is as close to a family reunion as we get in Hell."

Buffy could not help herself laughing out loud. She felt a bond with these creatures similar to the one between her and her mother. She picked up Ishosantos and held him to her chest. He twined her dreadlocks around his tiny fingers.

"I'm not your prisoner am I?"

"Certainly not. This is your home. You are free to stay or leave as you wish."

"I need you to answer some questions for me."

"Please ask questions until the sun implodes and the universe forces us to move on."

"Okay. You said that that was my soul. Buffy's soul. You also said that that was the soul of the Slayer. How can that be? I died. Another was called. Her name was Kendra. She died and she was replaced with a second Slayer called Faith. How can that be my soul?"

"Where the virgins that were called after you your equal?"

"No. And I don't know whether they were virgins. One anyway."

"There is your answer. The humans put rules upon your spirit. You were too strong to obey them. The women who followed you were not the Slayer. They were weakened facsimiles of you. They were brought about by the human's rules, which have been in existence for almost as long as you have been away from us. Were these other Slayers as courageous and individual as you are?"

Buffy did not like to speak ill of the dead but she answered anyway.

"No. I'm still going. They both…quit."

She sat down and flopped the wriggling Ishosantos into her lap.

"I have another question. Why it was me who was called to be the Slayer?"

"We are not the ones you should ask that question of."

Buffy's mood darkened as she thought of the Watchers Council. "Then tell me. What am I? Why did you create a Slayer?"

Ondancetron looked to first Lucifuge and then the unusually aware infant Ishosantos. He bowed his head.

"This is terribly difficult for a God to admit. But we have been infected with our own offspring."

Buffy cocked her head and set Ishosantos aside. She had been waiting the past four years to hear this and she didn't want to miss a word.

"You were not our first attempt at creating a life in our image. We wanted to emulate the faceless God of heaven by creating a creature that was representation of all our powers. It called itself the Pnarwaidh. The Pnarwaidh was very different from you. We tried to give it all the best aspects of ourselves but we failed miserably. What we produced was a hunger demon intent upon the destruction of all life. It possessed powers we could never have imagined. It permeated all dimensions like a parasite.

When the early humans drove us from earth the Pnarwaidh remained because it had assimilated the shape of its prey and avoided rejection. It is moronic in the extreme and yet perfectly adapted to do what it does. Among the many dimensions it infected was our own and it found our life force to be particularly to its liking. We were unable to rid ourselves of its presence and it fed upon us and grew in numbers until our reality could no longer restrain its spread."

Ondancetron bent over again and clutched his abdomen writhing in pain.

"We created you to be our savior. We could not kill our own creation. We gave that responsibility to you. Life is a circle Buffy. It begins with a birth and ends with a death. In between, if the animal is fit and fortunate enough it will be able to pass on its strengths to the next generation. Without death life is without purpose. Through death life gains meaning and urgency. It is not a curse to be the Slayer. It is a privilege. Death is your gift and you are an agent of life. Please...Slayer…help us."

Ondancetron contorted unable to withstand the pain of whatever was hurting him inside. Lucifuge and Ishosantos began to writhe and spasm beside him. Whatever was inside Ondancetron was in them also.

"Let them out," shouted Buffy. "Show them to me. Your Slayer has returned. Let the Pnarwaidh out and I'll bring my gift to them."

All three of the Hell Gods began to vomit upon the stone floor of the pyramid. Buffy had never seen a God vomit before. She had to admit that it was quite impressive. Black vomit spewed from their mouths and covered the floor in an instant. Unable to withstand the release the Lords of Hell collapsed and the vomit sprayed the walls and cascaded all over Buffy. She was instantly covered in a biting, agonizing pain. She scraped at the thick black substance trying to cleanse her body of its toxicity.

It was not a fluid. It was an animal. Many animals. As the Pnarwaidh was expelled from the Gods bodies they reverted to the size Buffy was used to seeing. They spread filling the massive chamber with their punctate bodies. Buffy started to drown under their heaving weight. There was only one thing she knew how to do. Only one thing she wanted to do. She started to slash at them. Their skin ruptured like ripe fruit and sprayed vile internal juices over her face. She clawed back and forth with all the strength she possessed. The Pnarwaidh were so densely packed that she could not fail to rend them apart.

They panicked. They could feel the Slayer amongst them and they squealed in fear for their easy lives. They started to try to escape. Very slowly they found the opening and as if communicating telepathically they all swarmed towards it. Buffy followed hacking and tearing at their prone backs. They massed at the exit and with a blood-curdling howl she dived upon them and killed a dozen with every swipe.

The legions of Pnarwaidh streamed from the first terrace of the pyramid and coursed down into the jungle where they hopped for their lives. Buffy followed them out into the hot night air and drove the last few from the temple then she tilted back her head and let out a sound that chilled every animal in the jungle. There was a new old predator in town.


	33. Chapter 33

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Nine**

"So what you're saying is that there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just a demon called a Norway."

"I never said there was nothing wrong with you Spike. Far from it. I just said that this is Hell and you've taken on the most extreme aspect of the demon you are most closely related to. And its pronounced Pnarwaidh."

"How are you so sure?"

"Our tech boys predicted that demonic alteration was a possible outcome of traveling through the rift."

"How come you aren't sprouting horns then?"

"What can I say? I'm from Iowa. We grow good boys out there."

"Bullshit."

"Shut-up. Something is coming."

Riley hunkered down behind a tree and Spike bounced to his side.

"What is it?"

"Pnarwaidh. Lots of them."

Herds of Pnarwaidh thundered towards them. They were black and it was night and they were on them in an instant. Riley didn't waste time wondering where they had all come from. He pointed the disruptor and started firing. The Pnarwaidh caught in its beam detonated instantly. The weapon was so powerful that other Pnarwaidh caught in the explosion flew apart also.

"Where they going?"

"I have no idea Spike. Now shut-up and help me."

"No I have to go with them. I can't help myself."

Spike bounded from cover and joined the undulating masses of Pnarwaidh as they indiscriminately flattened everything in their path. In an instant Spike was gone, hidden amongst their numbers. A few seconds later Riley found himself alone in the jungle watching the last few straggling Pnarwaidh disappearing in the direction of the stampede.

Riley took a second to gather himself. Spike was gone. He had been surprisingly good company but had slowed down their progress. Riley's internal sensors flashed up the position of the pyramid; without Spike he could be there in a matter of minutes. He started to run.


	34. Chapter 34

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Ten**

The invading Initiative threw the rift completely out of balance. Giles, Ethan and Olivia could no longer hold it together. Giles hardly had time to realize what was happening before the rift collapsed around them. The squid disappeared and they were rushing forwards through space towards the sun.

Giles staggered to the side and fell flat on his face. He heard the other two Scourges hit the ground near by and then they were surrounded with the deafening cacophony of the Initiative tanks. Instinctively he curled up in a ball thinking that at any moment he was going to be run over. He had failed. He had been unable to keep the rift open. At least he was trapped in Hell along with his charge. It was the least he deserved.

*** ***

Galloway quickly gathered his wits and opened the hatch of the turret. He removed his goggles and visually checked the positions of the other squadrons. What he saw chilled him to the bone. Only eight other tanks had made it through the rift. There were supposed to be twenty-two in Squadron One alone.

"Something on the radar sir."

"What is it?"

"Unknown sir but they're coming in fast and towards our coordinates."

"Move out. Move out immediately." He screamed into his radio.

"No can do sir. Nowhere to go; the rainforest is all around us. We're blocked in sir."

We came out at the wrong place thought Galloway as the first of the radar blips made itself known. It was one of Squadron One's missing tanks. And it was falling; and from a great height. Its impact with the ground was incredible. Flames erupted and enveloped the remaining squadron as the contents of the whole fuel tank were blasted into the air. Another tank came down hard and then another.

"Sir. Remaining units are requesting orders. Sir? Sir I repeat…"

"I heard you you bastard. Fuck up I'm trying to think."

Another tank scored a direct hit with a ground vehicle and shrapnel screamed through the air like a firework display. This was not how the general had planned things. The rest of Squadron One that had made it through the rift as well as some of Ariel Gold plummeted to the ground in the next few seconds and tank after tank full of Initiative soldiers died horrible deaths. After a minute it was over. Galloway opened his turret hatch and poked his head out.

"Report remaining ground force."

"Three here sir."

"Nineteen sir."

Two more tanks reported in. That made five in total. They had been reduced from three squadrons to five operable vehicles and they had not yet even engaged the enemy.

"Sir ground sensors this time."

"What is it?"

"Not sure sir but it's alive and there's fucking millions of them."

Galloway drew his side arm. He wasn't sure whether he meant to shoot whatever was coming towards them or himself. There was movement in the tree line all around them. Galloway opted for the former and began to pump bullets into the swarming Pnarwaidh.

"Gunners target directly ahead. Zero range. Fire."

The tank cannons fired shells as low to the ground as they were able but they weren't designed for this kind of close proximity battle. The rounds detonated in the forest and although they took many of the chomping demons with them they did nothing to the Pnarwaidh already swarming over the tanks. Galloway got a few that were munching on the leering generals cadaver but all that did was attract the attention of others. He tried to get the hatch closed but was too late for his right hand which left in the mouth of a ravenous invader.

Seeing their captain drop onto the floor spouting blood from a severed limb did not help the morale of his men at all. They were however well trained and one tried to get morphine from a med-cab to treat Galloway with. He was just about to slide the needle into the captain's arm when a hole appeared in the reinforced steel of the tanks exterior shell. A Pnarwaidh squeezed in and pureed its human occupants in a matter of seconds.

*** ***

Giles was running for his life, darting between trees and flying through the undergrowth as if it wasn't there. He felt exactly as he had done during Ethan's spell in London those many years ago. The same black creatures that had hunted him through the long grasses of the African savanna were hunting him again only this time it was for real. His breath burnt in his lungs as he tried to squeeze another step and then another out of his terrified body.

Olivia and Ethan were close behind. They had been a part of the same experience and remembered it just as vividly as the Watcher.

"I think we lost them." Said Ethan.

"I hope you're right," gasped Giles, "But let's keep going. Just to be sure."

At that moment a black shape moved from the shadows between the trees and crept closer. It rounded on the three panting humans, getting as close as it could without being detected. It picked its target and when it felt it could advance no more without being seen it attacked. It launched itself into the air and with a roar let its serrated mouth yawn open.

Ethan saw the Pnarwaidh in his peripheral vision and thought it was going for him. He tried to protect himself by pushing Olivia towards it so it would go for the woman and not him.

"Olivia." Screamed Giles and grabbed at her. He caught her by the fingers of her left hand but his grip wasn't strong enough. The Pnarwaidh ripped her whole head off with one ferocious bite. Olivia's body staggered forwards and fell forwards pulling her hand out of a stunned Giles hand. Blood spat from the wound in her neck as her body tried to supply a brain that was no longer there. Ethan screamed and began to run again as the masticating demon rounded for another attack. He disappeared into the dense jungle abandoning both the corpse of the woman he professed to have loved and well as his best friend to the enemy.

Giles dropped to his knees and stared at Olivia's corpse. He opened his hand and stared at her ring that had come off her finger as she had fallen. Behind him he could hear the Pnarwaidh get closer.

"Go on you bastard," he shouted, "You've been waiting long enough for this. You've got me, now kill me and lets get this over with."

The Pnarwaidh went past him and straight to Olivia where it began to jump up and down on her body. Giles stared at the sight awestruck. The feeling that had been with him since his days in Spittalfields; that all the Scourges were cursed to one day be hunted and claimed by that terrifying predator had not come to pass. The creature had had him prone and had not taken its chance. Perhaps this was part of its game. It would let him think he had escaped death only to draw out the hunt. Perhaps this torment fed its hunger as much as the life it took. Whatever. He had been given a second chance to live. Giles was taking it. He turned and ran and the joy at still being alive made him feel as light as air. As he ran a line from an Agatha Christie novel went through Giles' mind, 'And then there were two'

Back in the clearing the Pnarwaidh continued to mutilate Olivia's corpse.

"Got you you bitch. I told you I would. Shouldn't have messed with the Big Bad should you?"

Spike continued to jump on Olivia's corpse saying 'Bitch' with each leap.


	35. Chapter 35

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Eleven**

Buffy stood up on two feet like a human and walked back into the pyramid. Ishosantos ran to her and wrapped his tiny arms around her legs. Ondancetron and the enormous Lucifuge smiled at her.

"I'm not staying." she said. "I want to go home."

"But Slayer…" began Ondancetron.

"Forget it. I'm not staying in Hell. This may be your home but its not where I belong."

The three Lords of Hell shared a look.

"Slayer we had hoped…"

"Hope away all you want. It doesn't matter anymore. And stop calling me Slayer. I'm Buffy. Buffy Summers, the vampire Slayer. You may have created the spirit that became the Slayer but you lost her and that's just tough for you. I have its power now and I decide what I do with my own life. I get that now. I understand and I accept it."

Lucifuge sat down with an impact that shook the entire structure.

"I'm sorry for you but you don't want me back. You just want someone to clean up your mistakes and make your life more bearable. Forget it. I get enough of that at home. I'm more than some glorified fly swatter."

"But Buffy we need you."

"You're Lords of Hell. Demons pray to you in their sleep. What do you need me for?"

"We love you," said Ishosantos. "Don't go."

Buffy looked down at the small boy then put her hand in his face and pushed the God to the floor.

"You're no different than the Council. Every one wants a piece of me until I have no time for my own life. They tried to tell me that I had a destiny. You try to tell me that I have no choice. That who I know myself to be is wrong and you're my family and I owe you. Well enough is enough. No more. I'm drawing a line in the sand or whatever this muck down here is."

"Slayer you do not understand."

"Ondancetron; cool name by the way. You are the one who doesn't understand. I'm grateful for you explaining to me what I was but it doesn't matter anymore because that's not who I am now."

The old man approached her and put a hand as soft as a spring leaf to her cheek. His brow worked as he tried to find the words to say.

"I would not and will not keep you here against your will Buffy but we truly do need you. The Pnarwaidh will return when they sense you are gone and they will continue to feed upon us until there is nothing left. This dimension will fall into history and we will become whispers on the wind. I cannot imagine the confusion you must experience being torn between your world and this one. But know this my child. Be it you Buffy or be it another's light burning on that dais, the Slayer will return home one day. I am Death and I know life like Charon knew the Styx. The Slayer will return to Hell for it is here that peace exists for her."

He turned his back on her.

"Now go. There are others, humans that care for you as we do. Go Buffy Summers. Return to your world and fight your fight if that is your wish but I ask one thing of you."

"What's that?"

"DIE DEMON SCUM."

The air filled with a brilliant crackling energy. Lucifuge was thrown backwards with a yowl that caused Buffy's ears to scream in protest. Riley swept the disruptor over Lucifuge's frame and the demon Lord contorted as the pure-Life energy seared his flesh. Ondancetron came forwards and Riley pointed the weapon at him. Buffy stepped in front of the God of Death. Riley lowered the disruptor slightly. His face softened, "Buffy?"

"…riley?"

The expression on what was left of his face hardened and the weapon went back to the level of his eyes. He squeezed the trigger.

Buffy ducked under the vociferous beam and catapulted herself along the floor at Riley. The energy crackled over her and struck Ondancetron lifting the old man into the air and whipping him about the chamber like a fly caught on the end of a chameleon's tongue. Buffy caught Riley across the waist with her shoulder nailing him to the ground as if he had been run through with the lance of a charging knight. The fight was on.

The disruptor flew from his hands and Ondancetron dropped to the tiles. Buffy straddled Riley and slashed her nails across his chest. Sparks flew from the plasti-steel but Riley was phased for only an instant.

He curled his legs up behind her and hooked his feet under her armpits. He began to squeeze. The pain was incredible as the assemblies of pistons that powered the limbs focused all their force on her ribs. Buffy hammered her fists into his thighs in an attempt to extricate herself from his grasp but it didn't work. There were no nerves underlying the surface for her to numb. She didn't realize it was a machine and not a man in armor. She began to weaken. Riley felt her give slightly and instantly straightened his legs slamming her back into the stone tiles driving the air from her lungs.

The cyborg was up faster than his size should have allowed. One big metal hand came down at her and coiled in her long matted hair. Riley hauled her off the ground with one fluid, ergonomically engineered movement. With his flesh arm he began to work her torso driving his fist again and again into body trying to prevent her getting her breath back. Buffy caught his fist with one hand and stopped it dead. She began to squeeze hard and her talons pierced his flesh. She felt an explosion of ecstasy in her chest and bared her teeth as she drew first blood. The elation was short lived.

He wrapped his arms around her and took her in an almighty bearhug. She screamed and he released her only to drive his head hard into hers. She staggered back. The disruptor was still connected to his hip and Buffy grabbed for it. He threw a huge fist at her but she ducked under the droning metal, straightened and hit him square in the face with the butt of the weapon. Blood burst from his nose. She hit him again and again trying to drive Riley back into the chamber where there was a hope of some assistance from the Lords.

Riley unclipped the weapon and in one quick movement wrapped the cable around her throat. He pulled hard and she was spun round and hit the ground again. He grabbed her by the hair and drove a knee into her face. Then using both arms ran her into first one wall and then the other, pushing her back into the passageway.

She sprawled in the narrow corridor and scrambled away from him desperately trying to find some space in which to work. This wasn't going well, she was loosing. These close quarters didn't suit her style. She needed room to move so she could use her best weapons; her feet. Riley was different, the corridor was perfect for him. There was nowhere in this constricted environment where she wasn't within his reach. He fought exactly as he did when they had been together in Sunnydale, getting in close, hitting hard and staying in close applying pressure until he had won.

He hit her on the side of the head with a resounding left hook and she whirled round and saw her own blood splatter the wall. He dropped an axe elbow onto the top of her head and her knees turned to jelly and an excruciating pain exploded in her neck accompanied by a crunching sound. She had never taken a beating like this before. She felt like she was dying.

Riley picked her up by the dreadlocks once more. There was finality to the movement and he roared like a wrestler setting up their finishing move. He drew back his metal arm and Buffy saw it coming as if in slow motion but could do nothing about it. She was beaten, hanging like a rag doll; powerless. He pivoted, twisting round and with growing speed slammed his forearm into her chest. It felt as if she had been hit with a helicopter rotor blade. She sailed down the corridor grinding against the floor and rolled outside onto the terrace of the pyramid.

She lay back and stared into the sizzling sky. Her back was on fire where all the skin had been scraped off. She tried to move. Nothing happened. Riley loomed over her. She wondered where it had all gone wrong. She tried to tie her life down to one moment when it had fallen apart. Where did you go when you died in Hell?

"Riley?"

Riley turned. A woman with flowing blonde hair and dressed in military fatigues was standing on the terrace. She smiled at the cyborg.

"Riley. Is it really you?"

"Egg?" there was disbelief in his voice. He shook his head trying to shake away the sight of his dead girlfriend.

"Come here Riley. Come to me my love." Egg held out her hand and Riley, dumbstruck stepped towards her and took it.

"Forget her Riley. Its me you want. I've been waiting here for you for so long. Where have you been? You left me."

"I didn't leave you Egg." He sobbed suddenly overcome with emotion.

She embraced him and coiled one sinuous leg around his waist. Her hands were on his face and she pressed her lips against his in a deep kiss. Buffy turned her head to look. The woman was all over him and Riley was struggling to maintain his balance. Large black wings appeared on her back and Egg pressed herself against him harder completely occupying his world.

"Egg? What's happening?"

"Shhh my love. Shhh, everything is going to be okay." Egg pressed her mouth to his and very slowly Riley stopped struggling as she siphoned the love out of his body. Gently she set him on the ground. He lay still; all his drive and impetus for revenge removed. Anya stepped over his body and the image of the woman called Egg disappeared and was replaced with the sleek, black Succubus Anya had become.

"I had never been happy before I met Xander. I couldn't bear to live without him. I couldn't bear to go back to a life without happiness." She turned away as if embarrassed with her weakness for a stupid male.

"And there was me thinking that you just couldn't resist messing with my man." Buffy rose on trembling limbs and crawled to Riley. Anya watched but did not offer to help. Her forked tongue tasted the air like a snake. She had come back; was more expected from her?

"Riley." He turned his head and looked at Buffy. The mania that had been in his eyes had gone.

"These creatures are evil beyond measure. How could you associate with them?"

"They're not all bad."

"They are pure evil. They exist only to destroy us."

"Who told you that?"

Riley paused.

"They killed Egg, the only woman who I ever loved beside you. They killed me and turned me into this machine."

"You wouldn't have been creeping about trying to kill them at the time would you?"

"Buffy. Don't laugh at me. I'm serious."

"I'm not laughing. I just think you're pathetic. You say you died. You obviously got a second go at life and look what you made of it. All you wanted to do was go kill more demons and die again. You're more like the Slayer they wanted than I ever was."

Something she had just said caused an idea to blossom in her rattled head.

"Riley can you walk?"

He nodded and got to his feet.

"Help me inside. We've got someone to talk to. If you haven't killed him that is." Riley sheepishly took her under the arm and walked with her back into the pyramid. Anya followed them.

*** ***

"This is to our mutual satisfaction?" Ondancetron's clothes were still smoking from the disruptors energy beam but he seemed unhurt.

"Yeah. Look at him. He's happy. He has a purpose again. He gets to kill the demons that hurt him over and over again."

"He is mortal. He will not last forever."

"If the people that saved his life did to him what they did to a creature I fought called Adam then he's as good as immortal. You need a Slayer. Let him be that for you. It'll make me feel better about returning home."

Ondancetron peered back over his shoulder at the cyborg and Lucifuge who were eyeing each other warily.

"I am unsure but we cannot go on as we have been. It is agreed. The human will stay and protect us from the Pnarwaidh. There is a certain ironic symmetry don't you think?"

"Sorry I never was much of a one for math. I'd like to go now?"

"I will return you and all yours to where you came from." Said Ondancetron.

Buffy thanked him and leaned against Anya.

"How are you doing?"

"Better than you."

"Ready to go home?"

She didn't hesitate for a second. "Yes."

Ondancetron raised his staff but stopped as Riley came forward.

"Buffy. I just wanted to say..."

"It's okay Riley I think I know. I'm sorry too. I treated you like crap. You were too good for me."

"I wasn't too good for you. We just weren't meant to be lovers. In this life anyway."

"Maybe." She couldn't disguise the doubt out of her voice. "Until the next one then Riley."

"There's no bad feeling between us Buffy?" he said with sudden desperation in his voice.

"No Riley. No bad feeling between us. No bad blood at all."

He saluted her and she laughed at the simplicity underlying the gesture.

"Give them Hell Riley."


	36. Chapter 36

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Twelve**

The Hellmouth in Sunnydale opened with a surprising and brilliant flash. Four bodies were deposited on a hard floor and then the Hellmouth closed as suddenly as it had opened.

Mr. Coates the school janitor stopped dead in his tracks. A cigarette butt fell from his lips and into the pile of invisible dust he had been pushing around the halls of various High Schools for almost two decades. When the old Sunnydale High had burnt down he had never been happier. But then had come unemployment and no matter how weird some of the things he had seen within the old schools corridors nothing was as bad as having no job. When the new school had been built he had reluctantly applied for his old job and had opened his acceptance letter with mixed feelings. Everything had been going well until now.

"Jesus Christ," he said heading for the door. "Not this shit again. I didn't see nothing."

Giles grabbed Buffy to him and the two embraced for a long time. Eventually the Watcher peeled himself away as her grip threatened to break his back.

"Buffy. I...I..."

"I know Giles. Me too. You okay?"

"Some things happened."

"Want to talk later?"

"Yes."

"Me too. I have things to tell you too. Firstly though, give Anya a lend of your coat would you."

"What? Oh my! Oh my goodness."

Buffy looked at Spike. He looked back at her.

"Lost my bloody coat." He said.

Buffy hesitated. Physically she felt exhausted but mentally and spiritually she felt more alive than ever before since she had become the Slayer.

"Are you alright Spike?"

He shrugged and twisted one foot on the floor.

"I tried to find you." He said, "Nearly died. Wound up in Hell with one of your exs."

Buffy wanted to tell him that she wouldn't have risked the same for him but he probably already knew that.

"Thank for looking after Riley Spike"

The vampire threw back his head and laughed. There was a bitter twinge to the laughter.

"You're all heart Slayer."

With that he left on his own without waiting for the others. Without the usual dramatic sweep his coat would have given the exit Spike looked smaller, thinner and undeniably lonelier.

*** ***

Giles found a phone and rang Willow at Buffy's house. Exactly six minutes and forty-two seconds later Xander's work van screeched into the High Schools parking lot.

Xander and Willow bounded out.

"Oh God." Said Xander grabbing Giles in an enormous hug. "I'm so glad to see you. And you too Buffy. And you Willow. I'm so glad to see you too."

"Xander. I never left."

"Xander. Xander. What about me? Aren't you glad to see me too?"

"Anya baby I am so glad to see you safe and not hurt that it is going to take me quite a few days in bed to explain it to you fully. I'm just dealing with the unimportant people first."

"Oh Xaaanduurrr. I love you."

The two lovers linked bodies and kissed completely oblivious to all around them.

"Oh." Said Giles. "I have to say I think that's quite rude."

"I tell you." Said Willow, "She's definitely rubbing off on him."

Buffy couldn't help smiling as she watched the couple.

"Let it go Will," said Buffy in a gentle voice, "I think he's rubbing off on her too


	37. Chapter 37

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Thirteen**

Ondancetron sat on the top terrace of the pyramid puffing from a pipe. From the jungle before him came periodic flashes and horrendous squeals. Well at least someone was enjoying their job he thought.

"?"

"Yes I think it worked out quite well. I wasn't too sure what to do when I smelt the Slayer on the dead soldier but I had to do something. I couldn't just let an opportunity like that go."

"!"

"It worked out better than I could have hoped. He brought her to us and then returned to do her job for her. A conciliatory prize I believe it is called."

"?"

"No she didn't stay."

"?"

"I wasn't sure. It was too clouded, too many possible ways it could have gone. I'm sure it gave the Pluripotents quite a headache."

"?"

"She will be back. Not just any one. That one. She will return. I tried to tell her. I tried to explain to her that it is her own presence on earth that causes the imbalance she battles. She didn't listen. I think she thought that I was trying to con her in some way."

"!"

"Yes. You're right. I probably was a bit."

"!"

"Right well good to talk to you. Will I be seeing you again soon?"

"!"

"No? Right, the war and all that. Well I'd like to wish you luck but that would be kind of against my best interests so how about we just say goodbye?"

"!"

"Goodbye then."

Ondancetron watched the large orange squid float away and shook his head. Those heavenly types sure were an odd bunch he thought as the stench of charred Pnarwaidh wafted up from the jungle.


	38. Chapter 38

BAD BLOOD

**A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.**

**P.J. Dickinson**

Part Three: Hell

**Epilogue.**

Giles opened the large wooden chest at the bottom of his bed and carefully removed some items until he found what he had been looking for. It was a clear zip-lock bag. He opened it and examined the contents; a grubby 'Van DerGraph Generator' T-shirt and a rusted safety pin. He spent a few moments looking at them then put them back in the bag and with a sigh added Olivia's ring. He wondered what would be placed in the bag next. This made him think momentarily of Ethan but that was a dead end as far as he was concerned. He did not wish his old friend ill but he hoped he never met him again.

He returned the contents to the case and shut the lid. He had a quick shower and slipped between the sheets of his bed with the Trollop book he had promised himself what seemed like a lifetime ago. He was asleep before he could open it.

As he slept he dreamt and through this medium his subconscious communicated something to him. He woke with a start and blindly searched his bedside table for his glasses. The phone rang and he lifted the receiver as if he had been expecting it. He knew who was on the other end.

"Yes Buffy?"

"Giles I was dreaming."

"I know. The Initiative was experimenting on the Pnarwaidh."

"Exactly. What the Hell were Myth demons doing on Earth to begin with?"

**THE END.**


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